They built a prison by the freeway Just to rub it in It's a gentle reminder Of the wages of sin The ones on the inside Are being paid their share There's a hundred stories For every man in there There's marks on the cell wall There's marks on the mem One counts off the time lost The other counts till the end Chorus: Jailbirds in the bighouse Jailbirds in the sky Singing of their innocence They'll sing by and by Jailbirds in the bighouse Jailbirds on a spree Some of them coulda looked like you Some of them used to look like me Teddy was a bad kid From a bad family tree He was voted most likely To commit a felony And that was just in grade school After that he disappeared They say he moved or he dropped out And he's faded with the years A red hand in the cookie jar A foot in potter's field His face was waiting for a number His fate was aching to be sealed (Chorus) Teddy had a girlfriend Who gave him a place to stay But he left with her TV set And a baby on the way And if you should run across him He could shorten your life With the butt of a pistol Or the edge of a knife He'll sing a song of the rockpile Mourning all he had All the luck in all the world And most of it was bad