I got a gal in Cedartown Georgia
I used to have to walk nearly three miles to court her
She never had much, just a sharecropper's daughter
But I married her and took her down to New Orleans.
Bought a little house in the South French Quarter

Got a job hookin' bales, loadin' them on a steamboat
I give her seven days pay next day I'm broke
When she ain't a sleepin' all day she's a primpin'.
Every evenin' when the sun goes down
She starts a swarmin' on Orleans town

Walkin' into work this mornin' at daybreak
I caught her with the tall long dandy from canebreak.
She walked right by me and she looked right through me.
I made up my mind what I'm a gonna do
Eased in the pawnshop and bought a 22.

Watched as the roomclerk gave them a room key
Standin' outside I could read Room 23.
Tonight I'll put her on a train for Georgia
Gonna be a lotta kin folks squallin' and a grieving
'Cause that Cedartown gal ain't breathing