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Lord, his daddy was an honest man, just a red dirt Georgia farmer |
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His momma lived her short life having kids and baling hay |
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He had fifteen years and an ache inside to wander |
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So he hopped a freight at Waycross and wound up in L.A. |
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Well the cold nights had no pity on that Waycross Georgia farm boy |
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Most days he went hungry, then the summer came |
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He met a girl known on the strip, San Francisco's Mabel Joy |
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Destitution's child born on an L.A. street called Shame |
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Growing up came quietly in the arms of Mabel Joy |
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Laughter found their mornings to be the meaning to his life |
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Now the night before she left sleep came and left that Waycross country boy |
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With dreams of Georgia cotton and a California wife |
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Sunday morning found him standin 'neath the red light at her door |
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A right cross sent him reeling, put him face down on the floor |
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In place of Mabel Joy he found a merchant mad marine |
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Who growled, "Your Georgia neck is red but Sonny, you're still green" |
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So he turned twenty-one in a gray rock federal prison |
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That old judge had no mercy for that Waycross Georgia boy |
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Staring at those four gray walls in silence, learning he would listen |
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To that midnight freight he knew could take him back to Mabel Joy |
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Sunday morning found him standing 'neath the red light at her door |
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With a bullet in his side, he cried "Have you seen Mabel Joy?" |
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Stunned and shaken someone said "Son, she don't live here no more |
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She left this house four years today, they say she's looking for some Georgia farm boy" |
