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Joah Rumple
Sarah Sadlier
ENGL 111

Prison Blues: A Voice for Those Who Cannot Be Heard

This past month I watched a television show where inmates from various prisons spoke to
troubled children who were heading down the same broken paths the inmates had so wearily
tread. The tales of loneliness, sorrow, gripped me like a vice. They truly feel the wrath of a
mistake they made when many of them were still just kids (despite the legal age of adulthood
being 18 I dont feel most can be considered an adult at this age.) I was thrown into the shoes of
a man who knows he will never again hug his mother or lay in bed with the one he loves or hold
his child. It was painful to just image, yet these people live this. Some heard only the news of
their parents passing but never got to see the funeral, never got to say goodbye. Many of these
lost souls know the day and time they will die. These people are forgotten, their stories unheard,
and more often than not we completely forget the fact that like us they are also human beings
who love and are loved by other. The few great artists who dared to tell these tales were often
ostracized for doing so yet they sang them anyways. They gave a voice to those who cannot be
heard.
The Godfather of country music, Hank Williams, wrote what was perhaps one of the first
prison blues song. The song Lonesome Whistle, is a country ballad accounting the thoughts of
the speaker as he heads to prison on a lonesome train, with heinous thoughts induced by the,
Lonesome Whistle. The song starts referencing the speaker riding on a train to prison. The
whistle of the train haunting him as he goes, a constant reminder of the life to come. It states, I

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heard that lonesome whistle blow, and all alone I bear the shame, Im a number not a name, I
heard that lonesome whistle blow. These lines emphasize the speakers understanding of the life
he foolishly has taken on, it is later emphasized with words like, Ill be locked here in this cell
till my body is just a shell and my hair turns whiter than snow. This song is unique in the fact
that it puts more emphasis on the feelings felt before being in prison, as most prison blues songs
focus on the feelings of the prisoner as they are in prison. This song paved the road for many
country singers who sang prison blues songs and inspired the idea of speaking for prisoners and
sympathizing with them and sharing their stories.
The song Green, Green, Grass of Home, is a prison blues song written by: . This song
is set from a prisoners perspective. He talks in the song of his loved ones, particularly his sweet
Mary. The song tells how the speaker is being reunited with them, with lines such as, theyll all
come to meet me, arms reaching, smiling sweetly. It also tells of the speaker being reunited with
his childhood home and all he loved about it, the old house is still standing, though the paint is
cracked and dry and theres the old oak tree that I used to play on. Yet as the song winds
towards the end it is revealed that the speaker was only dreaming by stating, but then I awake
and look around me, at these four grey walls that surround me and I realize I was only
dreaming. This song makes you feel the joy the speaker feels as he dreams of the wondrous joys
of home. You get the feeling that youre reuniting with your loved ones after what is inferred as a
very long time apart. Yet this almost tearful experience is ripped away when the speaker wakes
from the dream to find himself still locked in prison, you feel the cold silence of the cell and the
bitter ache of a longing for affection all by simply listening to this beautiful song.
The most powerful of all prison blues songs is perhaps the Johnny Cash song, 25
Minutes To Go. The speaker in this song is man who in only 25 short minutes will be put to

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death. It accounts his thoughts and feelings as each minute slowly yet quickly winds down. The
extreme panic and fear is easily felt as Cash helplessly belts out the lines of this song, they gave
me some beans for my last meal with 23 minutes to go, but nobody asks me how I feel. The last
line of this verse is a tremendous statement to the loneliness of a man on death row who is about
to face his fate. This theme is constantly revisited throughout the song with lines such as,
Theyre bringing in a preacher for to save my soul with 19 minutes to go and hes talking about
burning but Im so cold, and With my feet on the trap and my head in the noose I got five more
minutes to go but wont somebody come and cut me loose. Some of the last lines are a powerful
statement to taking one last look at the world around you and understanding its beauty and the
pain of knowing you must leave it. The lines, I can see the mountains, I can see the sky with
three more minutes to go, and its too damn pretty for a man to wanna die, I got two more
minutes to go, are almost screamed and as a listener you definitely feel the pain and turmoil of a
man who is knowingly about to be put down like a sick dog. You are drug through the horrors of
facing death and wishing for redemption like being drug behind a roller coaster. You sympathize
and begin to question, question the importance of life and the death penalty.
The men these songs were written about were men who committed deeds that put them in
the position to have these wretched and heart breaking experiences. The loss of the liberty to
interact with other human beings and to spend time freely and by your own will be with those
you love is a prevalent theme in all these songs because it is what these people must live. These
songs were not written to say we shouldnt have jails or they shouldnt be punished but they were
written as reminders. These songs are special in that they remind us that these men are humans
with emotions and stories just like us. The authors of these songs gave these men voices and
even though they faced back lash and were heavily critiqued for doing so they still did it because

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they believed it was right and a just deed to share these stories. These ideas can be applied
beyond prison in helping remind us that everyone around us is a fellow human being who loves
and his loved by others. These songs help remind us that we should never forget that and that we
should cherish all that we have in this world because some do not get to live so luxuriously. We
learn to cherish the life that we have and to never take any aspect of it for granted. These songs
remind us all we would greatly miss if it was taken from us.