As I look around me at unfamiliar faces my mind goes back to my boyhood days   And the lust and the crazy far off places   Oh the simple country boy to a life of disgrace   I was raised on a farm way down in Louisiana down where the sweet magnolias grow   Just me and Mud and mama and papa little blue eyed Judy who lived down the road   I got Judy in trouble in the early days of summer   Oh she and mama cried and begged me not to go   Later on someone told me Mud and Judy got married   And they had a little girl with hair shining gold   I drank and I gambled and I knew many women I lived too fast for a boy just 21   And then one night I shot a man in Reno the very first time I had ever far to go   Mud came to see me last Sunday morning   He said Judy and the baby were waiting outside   His eyes filled with tears when I asked about mama   He said mama's heart's been broken she just laid down and died   I hear a cell door open soon it will be over I'll have to pay for the wrongs I have done   To Mud and Judy and mama and papa   And I'll hope you'll remember this when you're 21   And I'll hope you'll remember this when you're 21