Joan Baez - Prison Trilogy (Billy Rose) Lyrics

Billy Rose was a low rider;
Billy Rose was a night figher
Billy Rose knew trouble like the sound of his own name
Busted on a drunken charge
Drivin' someone else's car
The local midnight sheriff's claim to fame

In an Arizona jail there are some who tell the tale how
Billy fought the sergeant for some milk that he demanded.
Knowing they'd remain the boss
Knowing he would pay the cost
They saw he was severely reprimanded

nIn the blackest cell on "A" Block he hanged himself at dawn
With a note stuck to the bunk head
Don't mess with me, just take me home.

Come and lay, help us lay young Billy down.
Luna was a Mexican the law called an alien
For comin' 'cross the border with a baby and a wife
Though the clothes upon his back were wet
Still he thought that he could get
Some money and things that make a life.
It hadn't been too very long
When it seemed like everything went wrong
They didn't even have the time to find themselves a home

This foreigner, a brown-skin male
Thrown into a Texas jail
It left the wife and baby quite alone.

He eased the pain inside him with a needle in his arm
But the dope just crucified him
He died to no one's great alarm
Come and lay, help us lay young Luna down
And we're gonna raze, raze the prisons to the ground.

Kilowatt was an aging con of 65
Who stood a chance to stay alive
And leave the joint and walk the streets again
As the time he was to leave drew near
He suffered all the joy and fear
Of leaving 35 years in the pen

And on the day of his release
He was approached by the police
Who took him to the warden, walking slowly at his side
The warden said "You won't remain here
But ist seems a state retainer
Claims another 10 years of your life."

He stepped out in the Texas sunlight
The cops all stood around
Old Kilowatt ran 50 yards then threw himself down on the ground

They might as well just have laid the old man down
And we're gonna raze, raze the prisons to the ground
Help us raze, raze the prisons tho the ground