“Prison Song is an extraordinary gift. Its pages remind us all that despite our nation's perpetual attempt to lock people away and to silence them behind bars, music is powerful and it has always allowed them still to be heard.”

“Prison Song offers a truly compelling insight into the integral, varied, and complex role that so-called prison songs have played and continue to play in American society and beyond. Written with impeccable attention to detail and marrying music history with moments of rich musical analysis and sociocultural critique, Metzer takes the reader on a sonic journey through a century of American songs. Spanning not only a vast time period, but also an incredibly wide array of musical genres, there is likely something of interest to all music researchers, whatever their preferred genre persuasion may be.”

“Prison Song showcases Metzer’s extensive knowledge of musical repertoire in exceptional detail. Metzer’s command of the material enables a seamless representation of complex issues that the reader can revisit and reread for depth while individual chapters stand alone as exceptionally written pieces of scholarship and can be assigned in groupings. This book offers significant contributions to interdisciplinary prison studies.”

“His book makes the case that studying the music made by and about incarcerated people can bring about change by promoting empathy and understanding. Each chapter in Metzer's challenging, reflective, substantive, multilayered book is strong enough to stand on its own.”

“Prison Song turns an enormous subject into a history told through musicians, songs and the people whose experiences inspired them. From Johnny Cash to Jay-Z, generations of musicians have sung about what happens behind prison walls. Metzer’s book asks us to listen to those songs together and consider what they’ve been telling us all along.”