"There Ain't No Good Chain Gang" is a song written by
Hal Bynum
Harold L. Bynum (September 29, 1934 – June 2, 2022) was an American songwriter associated with the Outlaw country movement in the 1970s. Bynum wrote more than 200 songs for popular country artists, including Kenny Rogers (" Lucille"), Patty L ...
and Dave Kirby, and recorded by American
country music
Country (also called country and western) is a genre of popular music that originated in the Southern and Southwestern United States in the early 1920s. It primarily derives from blues, church music such as Southern gospel and spirituals, ...
artists
Johnny Cash
John R. Cash (born J. R. Cash; February 26, 1932 – September 12, 2003) was an American country singer-songwriter. Much of Cash's music contained themes of sorrow, moral tribulation, and redemption, especially in the later stages of his ca ...
and
Waylon Jennings
Waylon Jennings (June 15, 1937 – February 13, 2002) was an American singer, songwriter, musician, and actor. He pioneered the Outlaw Movement in country music.
Jennings started playing guitar at the age of eight and performed at age f ...
. It was released in May 1978 as the second single from the album ''
I Would Like to See You Again''. The song reached #2 on the ''
Billboard
A billboard (also called a hoarding in the UK and many other parts of the world) is a large outdoor advertising structure (a billing board), typically found in high-traffic areas such as alongside busy roads. Billboards present large advertise ...
''
Hot Country Singles & Tracks
Hot Country Songs is a chart published weekly by ''Billboard'' magazine in the United States.
This 50-position chart lists the most popular country music songs, calculated weekly by collecting airplay data from Nielsen BDS along with digital sal ...
chart.
Content
The song is written and sung from the perspective of a prison inmate, writing back home to his family. He tells of the lessons he's learned while incarcerated; the chorus tells the four main ones:
#"There ain't no good in an evil-hearted woman",
#"I ain't cut out to be no
Jesse James
Jesse Woodson James (September 5, 1847April 3, 1882) was an American outlaw, bank and train robber, guerrilla and leader of the James–Younger Gang. Raised in the " Little Dixie" area of Western Missouri, James and his family maintained stro ...
",
#"You don't go writing
hot check
Dishonoured cheques (also spelled check) are cheques that a bank on which is drawn declines to pay (“honour”). There are a number of reasons why a bank would refuse to honour a cheque, with non-sufficient funds (NSF) being the most common one ...
s down in
Mississippi
Mississippi () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States, bordered to the north by Tennessee; to the east by Alabama; to the south by the Gulf of Mexico; to the southwest by Louisiana; and to the northwest by Arkansas. Miss ...
", and
#"There ain't no good
chain gang
A chain gang or road gang is a group of prisoners chained together to perform menial or physically challenging work as a form of punishment. Such punishment might include repairing buildings, building roads, or clearing land. The system was no ...
".
Chart performance
References
1978 singles
1978 songs
Johnny Cash songs
Waylon Jennings songs
Songs written by Hal Bynum
Song recordings produced by Larry Butler (producer)
Columbia Records singles
Songs about prison
{{1970s-country-song-stub