(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