San Quentin Blues lyrics
Verse 1
Benjamin Earl Turner
- Fuck it
- You go, I go?
- Nah I mean I go, you go
- Same time since we did time at the same time
It ain't all bad
But if it bleeds it leads
And I can't tell the difference between
The cell block and a triage wing
I got a finite amount
Of fortitude in this fortress
Battling the evil gorgeous
Of a panopticon
Seen but invisible
Like the 13th Amendments tentacles
Every night might could
Be you verse' you in the Octagon
I'm in crime school
Trying to be truant
How the f*ck you think
We teach criminals
How to be criminal
Here in the fallen Gods Parthenon?
I'ma be the paragon prisoner
Dodge all the sinister
Ms. Understood been
My number one visitor
And I ain't seen God since
Mom brought the minister
Verse 2Rafael Casal
All right, here I go
I am bench-pressing hard time
Round-robin family
Visit full of fiction
Smile, don't let them
See your spirit flinching
Giving the performance of a lifetime
Everybody coming in
Is leaving looking a bit more
Like they are living in the same prison
That we doing a bid in
How the fuck do we pretend that
We ain't split down the middle
I'm a cocked pistol
I'm a pot boiling over hot, hot
They in here with us
Locked in the cell block
I'm extra baggage for
My wife. I'm a bellhop
Money on my books used
To be for the nail shops
Now every penny pinched
BOTH
Now I'm a dog in
A cage they can watch age
They can watch change
Watch become strange
Watch become something
Prison sickness made
A Frankenstein of the carceral state
Whoo
Each minute feels like ten
INMATES
Ten
TURNER
Every week is a month
INMATES
Month
TURNER
A thousand years in a second
INMATES
Second
TURNER
A life goes out in a snuff
ALL
I'm on your head
I'm on your cell block
I'm on your cell block
I'm on your head, on your cell block
We on your cell block
We on your head
TURNER
- Hey, y'all got a camera?
- Film this shit
You know the kind of shit you
Hear talking through a toilet?
We once made liquor out of oranges
Moonshine shedding light on our torment
Wake up like reanimated corpses
Keep a tally for all the times
I considered slitting my wrists
And letting the rivers run red
As a Mississippi caucus. [YELLS]
CASAL
Don't know if my soul'll make it out
Who I used to be is fading now
This is an oven for
Making monsters out of men
And I can feel us baking now
This is chain-ganging
State-sanctioned
Slave-trading, license plate making
We numbers
240161 on my jumper
Separated into colors
Highly orchestrated
To hate each other
Looking back, what
Happened isn't a wonder
No wonder we...
TURNER
- Hey, now, hold tight, I'm friends with his wife
CASAL
- What's up?
INMATE
- He said he knows your wife, n*gga
CASAL
- Man, f*ck you!
TURNER
Each minute feels like ten
INMATES
Ten
Every week is a month
INMATES
Month
A thousand years in a second
INMATES
Second
A life goes out in a snuff
{LAUGHS} See, we made to be opposition
Like Abrahamic religion
Unholy cannibalism
The secret cabal ain't secret at all
BOTH
The threat of a law reinforced
By the force of these walls
You can't be in hell and not embrace it
TURNER
Let me guess, they
Think your chest vacant?
Yup, hate it. It's
Almost like these bars
Become some form of
Infinite separations
CASAL
Nah, nah, nah
Now, hold the f*ck on
This shit breaks a family
I feel mine dissolving
Who can love a man with
One foot in the coffin?
How can I compete when
Freedom is an option?
BOTH
I'd do anything to be
Back where we started
CASAL
I'd do anything to
Be back where I started
Right before I got
Dragged out of my apartment
TURNER
Right before they
Dragged me out the restaurant
And closed the door on
Futures that I said I wanted
BOTH
Now my life is haunted. {GRUNTS
TURNER
Each minute feels like ten
Every week is a month
A thousand years in a second
A life goes out in a snuff
Each minute feels like ten
Every weakness a crime
A thousand years in a second
CASAL AND TURNER
Wish I could just
Leave it all behind
Behind
Behind
