San Francisco Mabel Joy

His daddy was an honest man, just a red dirt Georgia farmer
His mother lived her short life havin' kids and balin' hay
He had fifteen years and he ached inside to wander
So he jumped a freight in Waycross and wound up in L.A.

The cold nights had no pity on that Waycross, Georgia farmboy
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

Growing up came easy 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 gave that Waycross country boy
A dream of Georgia cotton and a California wife

Sunday mornin' found him standing '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. Aw, but sonny, you're still green

He turned twenty one in a gray rock fed'ral prison
The old judge had no mercy for a Waycross country boy
Staring at those four gray walls in silence Lord, he'd just listen
to the midnight freight he knew Could take him back to Mabel Joy

Sunday morning found him lying '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 don't live here no more
She left this house four years today they say she's lookin' for
some Georgia farmboy