[Verse 1: Tom Scott] Just sittin' in my lonely cell, with my lonely self And nothin more than my thoughts - no one else I got my cell mate misery he knows me well He keep me company and help me to, open my mail And a, he'll never tell anybody my secrets That I keep, deep, underneath sheets of refill Cause, people are lethal, like the injection You can never quite tell, despite the impressions so I never let screws, up in my mind You wanna search my cell I got nothin' to hide You wanna frame me, k** me, milk me of my purity But they can't penetrate my maximum security We're livin' in a world, wild full of wickedness Where people treated like they're prisoners with no visitors Every day, but I'm gonna figure out an escape plan Gotta get up out of this cage man, they say that [Hook] Prison is a state of mind I'm doin' time Misery is a mate of mine I heard that Prison is a state of mind I'm doin' time Misery is a mate of mine They Say that Prison is a state of mind I'm doin' time Misery is a mate of mine It Feels like Prison is a state of mind I'm doing time... [Verse 2: Tom Scott] Sometimes i feel as if I'm doin' life But, am I really alive? Or just surviving inside solitary confinement? In the mind, I'm too scared of thinking out side of I've had these bars so long, I can't tell who's behind them
sh**, guess I sold myself to the cell Turned myself in and told myself that I failed It's like, my biggest monster is my own consciousness A con conned by his own self confidence Chained up in the cuffs of his own thoughts Opportunity rung, I hung myself by the phone cord Wanting for more than we hope for Livin' in paradise, thinkin' 'bout jumpin' the gold wall Sit and think in my wrinkled jumpsuit About my life on the outside as a young dude I take a blunt spoon out of the lunch room And try to dig a hole to the old I once knew [Hook] Prison is a state of mind I'm doin' time Misery is a mate of mine I heard that Prison is a state of mind I'm doin' time Misery is a mate of mine They Say that Prison is a state of mind I'm doin' time Misery is a mate of mine It Feels like Prison is a state of mind I'm doing time... [Nas sample (scratched):] "Even my brain's in handcuffs" "Born alone, die alone" [Voice clip:] It's like this everyday. You get up, you go somewhere, you work, you comeback, and you walk an hour, and then you lay down, you take a nap, and you watch the news, and then you go eat supper, you come back and watch TV, and then you go to bed. And the next day, you get up and do the same thing over again. But it's not that different from what you do. It's prison!