San Francisco Mabel Joy

Lyrics

His daddy was an honest man, red dirt Georgia farmer  
His mama lived her short life having kids and baling hay  
He had fifteen years, an ache inside to wander  
He hopped a freight in Waycross, 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  
Destitutions child born of an L.A. street called shame  
  
Growing up came quietly in the arms of Mabel Joy  
Laughter found their mornings, brought a meaning to his life  
Yes, the night before she left, sleep came and left that Waycross  
Country boy with dreams of Georgia cotton and a California wife  
  
Sunday morning found him standing 'neath the red light of her door  
When a right cross sent him reeling, put him face down on the floor  
In place of Mabel Joy he found a merchant mad marine  
He growled that Georgia neck is red, but sonny your still green  
  
He turned twenty-one in a gray rock federal prison  
The old judge had no mercy for a Waycross Georgia boy  
Starin' at those four gray, in silence he would listen  
That midnight freight he knew would take him back to Mabel Joy  
  
Sunday morning found him lyin' 'neath the red light of her door  
With a bullet in his side he cried have you seen Mabel Joy  
Stunned and shaken someone said she's not here no more  
She left this house four years today  
  
They say she's looking for some Georgia farm boy