San Francisco Mabel Joy

Lord his Daddy was an honest man

Just a red dirt Georgia farmer

And his momma lived her short life

Having kids and baling hay

He had fifteen years and he ached inside to wander

So he jumped a freight at Waycross and wound up in L.A.

The cold nights had no pity on that 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 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

And 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 at her door

When a right cross sent him reeling

Put him face down on the floor

And in place of his Mabel Joy

He found a merchant mad marine

Who growled, "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 on that Waycross, country boy

Staring at those four grey walls, in silence he would listen

To the midnight freight he knew would 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, "Son, she don't live here no more"

No she left this house four years today, they say she's looking for

Some Georgia farm boy