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

And his mama spent her young life havin' kids and bailin' hay

He had fifteen years and an ache inside to wander

So he hopped a freight in Waycross and wound up in LA

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

Most days he went hungry and then the summer came

He met a girl known on the Strip as San Francisco's Mabel Joy

Destitution's child born of an LA street called Shame

Growin' up came quietly in the arms of Mabel Joy

Laughter found the 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

Sunday 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 groaned your Georgia neck is red but Sonny you're still green

He turned twenty-one in a grey rock Federal prison

The old judge had no mercy for a Waycross Georgia boy

Starin' at those four grey walls in silnce he would listen

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

Sunday morning found him lyin' 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 son she don't live here anymore

She left this house four years today and they say she's lookin' for

Some Georgia farm boy