I said goodbye to the cotton patches 
Left my sack out in the field
Caught a midnight ride down to Natchez under the hill
Fell in with some bad companions 
With no regard for the law
We were under the impression, we was above it all
There were high times but the truth was plain
We were one step from the coldness of the chain

My daddy was a quiet person 
He was a farmer all his life
He played the guitar in the morning and sometimes at night
The years caught up with him and mama 
The ol' homeplace was falling down
I had come into a little money, we bought a place in town
But the city life and the farm is not the same
And I knew he felt the coldness of the chain

It may be that freedom is just an illusion
Always dangling just out of reach
I have come to the conclusion
I can't change the way it was meant to be

There don't seem to be no way around it 
It's hard to set the spirit free
I've tried to fly but still I'm grounded by reality, how can this be?
And I can feel it in the air like a distant rain
I'm one step from the coldness of the chain