{"id":2149,"date":"2005-12-22T13:34:52","date_gmt":"2005-12-22T17:34:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/?p=2149"},"modified":"2021-10-13T14:31:00","modified_gmt":"2021-10-13T18:31:00","slug":"jacobgreen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/2005\/12\/22\/jacobgreen\/","title":{"rendered":"Johnny Cash had his demons, but few understood the importance of preserving human dignity like the Man in Black"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Frames<\/p>\n

Frames from the Johnny Cash biopic. Note the missing shoelaces.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

There is a new movie about Johnny Cash in the theatres now, Walk the Line<\/a>. The trailer <\/a> explains the importance of the film better than I can here, so I’ll let the trailer and the frames on the right of prisoners stomping their feet for Johnny Cash speak for themselves about the film.<\/p>\n

This is as good a time as any to revisit our last article about Johnny Cash. When he died in 2003, we replaced the front page of this website with an obituary<\/a> that highlighted what we then thought were two of his least known and most important songs, Man in Black<\/i> and San Quentin<\/i>.<\/p>\n

Since then, we’ve discovered something rarer and even more important: Jacob Green<\/i>. The song was first performed at a Swedish prison and released on the 1974 LP “Pa Osteraker” (Inside a Swedish Prison). In the U.S., the only place we know of to hear or see this song is in the recording of a 1976 concert at the Tennessee State Prison, A Concert Behind Prison Walls<\/a>.<\/p>\n

From that recording, here are the lyrics to Jacob Green<\/i>:<\/p>\n

\n

Jacob Green<\/h3>\n

I’ve learned one thing, that when a man is at rock bottom, when there is no place else he can go except up, that the only thing that is really important in the world to him is that somebody, somewhere cares. And with that in mind, I wrote this song about something that really happened to a 16 year old boy in the state of Virginia. It’s called Jacob Green.<\/i><\/p>\n

Jacob Green got busted for possession
\n next morning early he appeared in court
\n But he was sent to jail to wait
\n to be tried at some later date
\n Next morning early, there came a sad report
\n At the jail they took away his clothes to shame him
\n and to make sure Jacob Green had no pride left
\n They cut of all his hair
\n Today they found him hanging there
\n afraid to face the day he killed himself\n <\/p>\n

It happened yesterday, and if you turn your head away
\n Somewhere in some dirty hole the scene will be rerun
\n Not only Jacob Green, but many more you’ve never seen
\n It could be someone that you love gets done
\n like Jacob Green got done
\n It could be someone that you love gets done
\n like Jacob Green got done\n <\/p>\n

Jacobs father hired a team of lawyers
\n inspections and long inquiries were held
\n The sheriff then retired
\n and the papers said two guards were fired
\n They put a brand new coat of paint on Jacob’s cell
\n But like a tomb that looks so white and shiny
\n inside you’ll find corruption never seen
\n And somewhere out there tonight
\n In a dirty cell without a light
\n There will be locked up another Jacob Green\n <\/p>\n

It happened yesterday, and if you turn your head away
\n Somewhere in some dirty hole the scene will be rerun
\n Not only Jacob Green, but many more you’ve never seen
\n It could be someone that you love gets done
\n like Jacob Green got done
\n It could be someone that you love gets done
\n like Jacob Green got done\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Johnny Cash condemns the corruption and brutality of prisons in the song “Jacob Green”. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"coauthors":[11],"class_list":["post-2149","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2149","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2149"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2149\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12683,"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2149\/revisions\/12683"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2149"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2149"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2149"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=2149"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}