(listen to song in Music)

Got me free just to make myself a slave

Pickin’ up steam down a track smack to my grave

Put my shoulder to my load, put my faith in the American Way

Just another sharecropper beat down by the B of A

It’s a ball and a chain…………….ain’t no American dream

It’s a ball and a chain

My minds in shackles and my heart is in a vise

I’m swinging that sledgehammer nailing down these ties

Shoveling coal in a hole that’s hungry as hell

I’ll be feeding its mean little mouth till it tolls my bell

It’s a ball and chain ……………ain’t no American dream

It’s a ball and a chain

I’m ’bout dead but the train ain’t about to stop

Bound to die in shame ’cause my life insurance got dropped

Y’all can pitch my putrid body on the funeral pyre

And say, “That slave gave fuel to the fire”

Itʼs a ball and chain ……………ain’t no American dream

It’s a bawlin’ shame…………..it’s a con and a game