Over in the Tadpool group on Facebook, there’s a thread on the topic of “What’s your favourite song to sing in the shower?”  One of the commenters wrote: “That’s a tough one I don’t know if I have a favorite… I will sing anything from Johnny Cash, Folsom Prisom1 Rainbow Connection.”

Being a filker, of course…and a filker fresh off a con where my creative brain is already in gear, the following just fell out of my head:

Why are there so many songs about prisons
And people who are inside?
I’m stuck in this one because once in Reno
I shot a man to watch him die
I guess, in hindsight, I kind of deserve it
It wasn’t a nice thing to do
But as that train rumbles past old Folsom Prison
I can’t help but cry, wouldn’t you?

I’m not sure there’s really a point in going further with it; the joke is complete at the end of the first verse.2 I really need to start a file just for little show-stoppers like this one.

  1. Quipped another:  “Folsom Prism is my Johnny Cash ‘Dark Side of the Moon’ cover album.  I’d pay serious money for that album.  Serious money. ↩

  2. As Bill Sutton taught me:  “Short is good.  Funny is good.  Short and funny is best. ↩