His daddy was a simple man, just a red dirt Georgia farmer

And his momma spent her young live havin´ kids and balin´ hay

He had fifteen years and an ache inside to wander

So he hopped a freight in Waycross and wound up in L.A.



Lord, the cold nights had no pity on a Waycross, Georgia farm boy

Most days he went hungry then the summer came

He met a girl known on the strip as San Francisco´s Mabel Joy

Destitution´s child born of an L.A. street called "Shame"



Growin´ up came quietly in the arms of Mabel Joy

Laughter found their mornings brought meaning to his life

Yes the night before she left sleep came and left that

Waycross, Georgia boy with dreams of Georgia cotton and a California wife



Sonday morning found him standin´ ´neath the red light at her door

When a right cross sent him reelin´ put him face down on the floor

In place of Mabel Joy he found a merchant mad marine

Who growled, "Your Georgia neck is red but sunny, you´re still green"



He turned twenty-one in a grey rock fed´ral prison

The old judge had no mercy for a Waycross, Georgia boy

Starin´ at those four grey walls in silence he would listen

To that midnight freight he knew would take him back to Mabel Joy



Sunday morning´ found him standin´ ´neath the red light at her door

With a bullet in his side, he cried, "Have you seen Mabel Joy?"

Stunned and shaken someone said, "Why she´s not here no more

She left this house four years today, they say she´s lookin´ for some Georgia farm boy."



Mickey Newbury

Copyright 1969 by Acuff-Rose Publications, Inc.

BMI 4:23