Ball And Chain

Album: Once Again (1971)
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Songfacts®:

  • Not to be confused with the Big Mama Thornton song "Ball 'N' Chain", this Stuart Wolstenholme composition runs 4:49 and is the third track on Side 2 of the Once Again album, which was released in the UK on February 5, 1971.

    It features a distorted lead vocal effected by singing through a paper cup with the bottom pushed out. The album was apparently recorded in some haste so that one verse was accidentally sung twice, there was no time to re-record it, and the missing verse was apparently lost forever, but appears in the official biography of the band.

    If I could live my whole life again
    I would not be on this prison train
    And I'd have no trouble from my ball and chain


    Without the prison reference, the meaning of the song is more obscure, although it still makes a convincing allegory of the human condition. >>
    Suggestion credit:
    Alexander Baron - London, England

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