“Swing That Hammer” is a song recorded by the Lonesome River Band, the long-running Virginia bluegrass group. It appeared on one of the band’s albums around 2000.
The song is sung from inside a prison work gang. Out under a hot sun, in shackles, the singer swings a hammer to break rock; the lyric carries the weariness, the heat, and the hard punishment of the chain-gang life.
The song’s driving rhythm matched its hammer-swinging subject.