The Prisoner's Song
The Cost of Jail vs Work - A Choice for All!
IN Jail you spend the majority of your time in an 8X10 cell.
AT WORK you spend most of your time in a 6X8 cubicle.
IN Jail you get three meals a day (free).
AT WORK you only get a break for one meal and you have to pay for it yourself.
IN Jail you get time off for good behavior.
AT WORK you get rewarded for good behavior with more WORK.
IN Jail a guard locks and unlocks the doors for you.
AT WORK you must carry around a security card and unlock all the doors yourself.
IN Jail you can watch TV and play games.
AT WORK you get fired for watching TV and playing games.
IN Jail you get your own toilet.
AT WORK you have to share.
IN Jail they allow your family and friends to visit.
AT WORK you can not even speak to your family and friends.
IN Jail all expenses are paid by taxpayers with no work at all.
AT WORK you get to pay all the expenses to go to work and then they deduct taxes from your salary to pay for the prisoners.
IN Jail you spend most of your life looking through the bars from the inside wanting to get out.
AT WORK you spend most of your time wanting to get out and go inside bars.
(Notes: A bus driver makes $35k/year plus overtime.
It costs $30k to $50k per year to keep one person in jail. End of Notes.)
The Prisoner's Song("The Prisoner's Song" is a song copyrighted in 1924 by Guy Massey, but transcribed by his brother Robert Massey. The lyrics were carved into the wall of a cell in the old Early County Jail in Blakely, Georgia by Robert F. Taylor, who was at one time held there. The Prisoner’s Song rates as a 1920s all-time best-seller with a staggering seven million-plus copies sold worldwide in the version by Vernon Dalhart. The Vernon Dalhart recording charted for 32 weeks, twelve at No. 1, during 1925 and 1926. The Vernon Dalhart version was recorded on Victor Records in October 1924 and marketed in the hillbilly music genre. It became one of the best-selling records of the early twentieth century, with at least two million copies sold (sales figures are uncertain; some place the sales at 7 million or more), as well as over a million copies of the sheet music to the tune.) Oh I wish I had someone to love me Someone to call me her own, Oh I wish I had someone to live with For I'm tired of living alone. Oh please meet me tonight in the moonlight Plwease meet me tonight all alone For I have a sad story to tell you It's a story that's never been told. I'll be carried to the new jail tomorrow Leavin' my poor darlin' alone With the cold prison bars all around me And my head on a pillow of stone Now I have a grand ship on the ocean All mounted with silver and gold And before my poor darling would suffer. Oh that ship would be anchored and sold. Now if I had wings like an angel Over these prison walls I would fly. And I'd fly to the arms of my poor darling And there I'd be willing to die. (Note: From Vernon Dalhart recording, 1924. This was the flip side of Wreck of the old 97, and Dahlhart made several cover versions for some 30 different labels. This was clearly the single most popular record ---of any type--- produced at the time, with reported sales up in the billions of records being reported. A decade later, Acuff covered it, and sold another million or so.) |