Modern music often strives to contain a narrative, the most popular story being one of love or love lost. However, cannot music explore each and every facet of the human experience, even those that cannot be explained through the telling of a tale? When considered beyond lyrics, music is perhaps the most intuitive medium; if film and visual art are an exploration of the external aspects of the self (with an inherent focus that is centered on the physical features, actions and dialogue of the characters), and the novel an internal medium (with an inherent focus that is centered on the thoughts or feelings of the characters), then music must be striving to reach something even more abstract: the ineffable subjectivity of the listener. While one can usually explain or be convinced of the merits of a certain genre of film or style of novel over another, one's taste in music is much more intimate and often inexplicable. While no piece of art evokes just one emotion, they usually fall into a certain range, whereas two people can listen to the same piece of music and have radically different reactions to it. The emotions evoked from a piece of music depend almost entirely on the subjective experience of the listener; if I love Johnny Cash and someone else doesn't, there is little I can say to make them see why and if I find a song uplifting and someone else finds it depressing, there is little either of us can do to close that gulf. But really, I think that is one of music's inherent strengths. Music is, perhaps, all emotion (to the point that trying to use words to describe it is as absurd as trying to use tap-dance to describe architecture), and it is also something that can affect us deeply and with enduring strength, which should be a key component to any definition of art.

Thus, here is a Top-Ten list of songs about prison. To be considered here, the song must actually deal with prison as an idea or an experience and not just have it in the title. I also strove for diverse range of musical styles and ways of interpreting the idea of prison. Also, the song needs to be good.


1) Johnny Cash - Folsom Prison Blues



Perhaps the greatest song about prison, it is also a song about a train. All of the greatest blues songs are actually about trains, so this makes a lot of sense thematically. This song is a perfect example of the themes required to be a great song about prison: a literal incarceration, a resignation to one's current imprisonment, a mournful understanding of the series of events that lead to this current state of affairs, a desperate longing to be free accompanied with dreams of the world outside, the admission of guilt for a crime and/or the understanding of one's own despicable nature and an understanding of the despicable nature of the societal system that lead to one's incarceration. Also, here is an adorable video of a five-year-old boy playing this song:



2) Deerhunter - Cover Me (Slowly) and Agoraphobia



While technically two tracks, this is really one song. This song is great because it is a fantasy about imprisonment. The singer envisions imprisonment as an escape from the trials of life and describes a slow deterioration of the self that culminates in his own disappearance from existence (as though it would be an ideal situation). The relationship between the prisoner and the prison warden (here refereed to abstractly as the recipient of the singer's pleas) is subverted, as the prisoner desires to be incarcerated as opposed to being held against his will, which takes the power away from the traditionally "all-powerful" warden and makes him or her more of a caretaker and executor of the prisoner's fantasy.

3) The Vapors - Turning Japanese



While some people don't even think this a song about masturbating, it is definitely a song about masturbating in prison. Just look at these lyrics:

I've got your picture, I've got your picture
I'd like a million of you all round my cell
I want a doctor to take your picture
So I can look at you from inside as well...

and also:

No sex, no drugs, no wine, no women
No fun, no sin, no you, no wonder it's dark
Everyone around me is a total stranger
Everyone avoids me like a cyclone ranger
That's why I'm turning Japanese

The phrase "Turning Japanese" here is a lewd reference to someone squinting during an orgasm. The singer is obviously separated from his object of lust, and has his "cell" lined with pictures (of naked women). He is imprisoned in a chaste environment where he is alone. Anyway, this song is sick and twisted and amazing. The prisoner has nothing left but to be depraved.

4) Leadbelly - Gallis Pole



This is a song about a condemned person asking the executioner to allay an execution until a friend or relative arrives with enough money so that he can bride the executioner to set him free. It rings of authenticity because Leadbelly is famous for going to prison about half a dozen times. This song has been picked up by various other artists (including Led Zepplin) and is also be a centuries old folk song. While not explicitly about incarceration, it describes a most bizarre and interesting aspect of the relationship between the condemned and the executioner: the soon-to-die's only hope for salvation is mercy on the part of someone whose sole job it is to punish them, and even though this mercy would be absurd, the condemned still clings to that hope for salvation.

5) Thin Lizzy - Jailbreak



This song has one of the best guitar riffs in all of rock and roll. Dun, Dun, dunuh, dunuhnuh, Dun, Dun, dunuh! Great! Also, this song may seem to be about breaking out of prison, but its really a warning of an impending jailbreak and the anarchy that will ensue. It is a song about anger at society and the system that imprisoned these men, and it may just be an elaborate fantasy, but it puts the power in the hands of the imprisoned and implies that if the incarcerated were to ever escape, there would be on force on earth that could stop their fury.

6) Arcade Fire - The Well and the Lighthouse



This one gets me every time and it may have the genesis for my songs-about-prison obsession. Here, prison is made extremely personal and this may be a prison of the singer's own design. The song is structured in two parts: the "well" and the "lighthouse". The "well" portion of the song may be an allegory of one of Aesop's fables (an allegory of a fable?) where a fox tricks a wolf into diving into a well by telling him that the reflection of the moon is a piece of treasure (or cheese. I've heard versions where it is cheese). However, the reason why I love this song so much is the fact that prisoner takes complete responsibility for and has an almost irrational attachment to his "crime". Furthermore, the singer understands that his situation is dire and he has no chance for salvation ("left for dead, heaven is only in my head"). The second part of the song (the "lighthouse), describes the life and plight of a lighthouse operator. It sort of implies with the line "resurrected, living in a lighthouse" as the song shifts completely to a new musical movement that this operator may be the man trapped in the well, but the really interesting thing about this, and why it belongs in this list of songs about prison, is that the lighthouse operator is also, ironically, incarcerated, this time by duty. If he leaves his post, or metaphorically, stops being a paragon of morality (i.e. light), others will go astray ("If you leave, the ships are gonna wreck). Instead of being imprisoned by his wrong-doings, he is imprisoned by his dedication to doing good. I love how light and dark play and intermingle in this song and I'm impressed by how thematically consistent it is for being, musically, essentially two songs.

7) Cheeseburger - Commin' Home



This is the theme song for the hit adult cartoon series SuperJail (essentially if Willy Wonka was a prison warden) and is a great example of a song where the singer is an irredeemably bad person. Unable to cope with life on the outside, an ex-con commits a crime merely to get himself put back in prison. Once there, he realizes how prison has changed for the worst and is no longer the safe haven he remembers, and plans his escape to Mexico. Inevitably unsatisfied with life south of the border, he realizes that only place he really belongs is in hell, and he will soon be "commin' home". The song is unashamed, and relatively upbeat for a song about prison and human depravity.

8) The Kinks - Holloway Jail



While probably my least favorite song on the list, it deserves mention because it is a song about prison not from the perspective of the prisoner. A man's lover was seduced into a life of crime, and is now rotting away in prison. This song is compelling because it is also a song about betrayal; however, it loses points because it is essentially a love song. It's interesting how impotent the singer is, and one could argue he is essentially imprisoned by despair and waiting. I wonder how reliable a narrator he is, because while he seems to know every detail about his lover's degradation, he never mentions if he did anything to stop it. Was he really her lover, was she really set-up? The song implies that she left him for another man who took advantage of her, but the singer still remains devoted. "Holloway Jail" is multi-layered, though, musically, I don't think it's that great of a song.

9) Nick Cave - The Mercy Seat



A prisoner's lament. This song has an amazing, sustained drive that makes it frantic and kind of brutal. It's also another song in which the narrator is unreliable; as the song continues, the prisoner on death row's pleas that he is innocent ring less and less true. Also, Johnny Cash does a kick-ass cover of this song, so you know it's a hard-core song about prison and possibly a train. Typing that, I realize there is a strange train-like chugging sound in the background of this track, which helps drive home the moving-towards-my-demise feel of this song. Of all the songs on this list, it is probably the most angry and hateful. Listening to this song, one may realize that some songs about prison are also songs about death, but as opposed to a song about mourning or being victimized, the dying have only themselves to blame.

10) The Offspring - When You're in Prison



Goofy video aside, this is an unexpected offering from the Offspring. The old-timey recording quality and style combined with a less-than-serious treatment of the subject matter makes for a surprisingly fun yet ominous song about prison. It has a lot of good advice for someone new to the prison scene, like don't pick up the soap, and it also argues the relative merits of being someone's bitch or not. I really like angel's chorus-esque backup vocals, as it gives it a little class (as if it needed it!).

All of these songs about prison are great for one reason: they are intimate portraits of the individual's experience dealing with their own wickedness. These characters are not powerful or even redeemable; instead, these songs are about human sickness, madness and being rotten. If our positions were reversed, they would view us with as much disdain as we view them, even if that disdain only stems from the fact that only one of us was caught.