How I Got In the Penitentiary

[Alan Lomax is the interviewer, denoted Q; Bama is the interviewee, denoted A]

A: I learned that song in Tennessee
Q: Were you raised on a farm?
A: Yes sir, country farm, [all laugh]
Q: Well uh, how come you got in so much trouble?
A: Well, boss, the way I got in trouble the first time, the folks was barrin' me and I just got in the penitentiary and just worked and worked and worked so much. I had to work, and cut up the fellow, and shoot him up and then, when I got out of the penitentiary, I thought I had worked enough, and I decided I could make my livin' without workin' and I commenced with puttin' pistols on folks and that wouldn't do and then I commenced to stealin' еverything wasn't hot and nailed down and the policеs just commenced to runnin' me every which-a-way, every way I turn, so, after I got 'em started runnin' me, I just kept on doing wrong--fightin', stealin', you know, and robbin', and sometimes I wouldn't be done done nothin' but I'd been doin' so much till that when they'd get me that I'd due to been got anyhow. And one, two time they arrest me and I told'm I hadn't done nothin' and they said, "Well I arrest you in advance, you gonna do somethin'." So that way I just stayed in the penitentiary all the time, boss. In and out
Q: In and out all
A: In and out, in and out for the last s-... eighteen years!