 Overseas, "Chain Gang" charted at number nine on the UK Singles Chart.This was Cooke's second-biggest American hit, his first single for RCA Victor after leaving Keen Records earlier in 1959, and was also his first top 10 hit since "You Send Me" from 1957, and his second-biggest pop single.The song was inspired after a chance meeting with an actual chain gang of prisoners on a highway, seen while Cooke was on tour.