Lyrics

Dignity in Chains
Written By: Kristopher Daniel Pinnell
Verse 1
Flip-flops and denim
No belt to my name
High as a kite
In a runaway flame
Jewelry to remove
Jeans at my feet
Concrete and cameras
No dignity to keep
Known by my shadow
Before I was known
A name in their system
Not flesh and bone

Chorus
Dignity in chains
Though they locked my frame
They couldn’t shackle
The man or my name
Strip me of pride
Strip me of place
I stood in the wreckage
I kept my face
I carried it through
When everything said
There would be no trace
Dignity in Chains

Verse 2
Shackles on wrists
Shackles on feet
Sober now
Swallowing shame with defeat
Mocked down the hallway
Stripped of disguise
Humiliation burning
Behind open eyes
Hands tied behind me
No way to stand tall
Still I held something
They couldn’t take at all

Chorus
Dignity in chains
Though they locked my frame
They couldn’t shackle
The man or my name
Strip me of pride
Strip me of place
I stood in the wreckage
I kept my face
I carried it through
When everything said
There would be no trace
Dignity in Chains

Verse 3
Charges dissolved
Before court even called
Clerk at the door
Said the whole thing
Had stalled
No verdict
No trial
No words of repair
Just dumped on the pavement
Like nobody cared
First man I met
Tried to sell me escape
Old gravity
Pulling at every mistake

Chorus
Dignity in chains
Though they locked my frame
They couldn’t shackle
The man or my name
Strip me of pride
Strip me of place
I stood in the wreckage
I kept my face
I carried it through
When everything said
There would be no trace
Dignity in Chains

Verse 4
Million-dollar home
Not long before
Dogs at the door
A child to adore
I did what I knew
I tried to be right
Still ended in shackles
In the morning light
Begged for a ride
From a colleague I knew
Holding my jeans
My dignity too

Reprise
I tried to be right
In chains that night
Certain I’d never
restore the light
Today it’s a story
Not a cell I remain
No iron around me
No echoing shame
Twelve years I carried
What wasn’t my crime
Now it’s just memory
No longer my time
Today I stand free
Of that night’s refrain
No chains in my breath
No bruise to my name
What once was a sentence
Now fades in the sun
I lived
I survived
I’m not the undone