The exhaust from the prison van is going to heaven, but I'm going to Attica
Gonna put a hundred miles between me and my dealing habit
I'm watching Poughkeepsie move by in the afternoon rain
My hands are turning blue from these cuffs they got me in

I tried to keep my job at the dollar store
Found out my mom was sick and a dollar wasn't enough no more
I promise you Mama, I'm gonna get you them pills
I got me a box of bags and a baker's scale

Fifteen grams of heroin
An ounce of speed
Fifteen years to life
Rockefeller, that's a long old time

My brother was shot down on Warren Street a year ago tonight
Can't you see the medics with his body in the siren light
I promise you brother, I'm gonna be a good dad
Gonna give our children something like we never had

Fifteen grams of heroin
An ounce of speed
Fifteen years to life
Rockefeller, that's a long old time

Twenty boys in orange clothes in the jailhouse yard
Twenty needle-marks in the arms of God
Five hundred picketers this morning on the governor's lawn
Fifty white stars, my Darling, in the milky dawn

Fifteen grams of heroin
An ounce of speed
Fifteen years to life
Rockefeller, that's a long old time