His daddy was an honest man, a red dirt Georgia farmer   His mama lived her young life having kids and bailing hay   He had fifteen years and an ache inside to wander   Jumped a freight in Waycross and wound up in L.A.      The cold nights had no pity on that Waycross, Georgia farm boy   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 on an L.A. street called Shame      Growing up came quietly in the arms of Mabel Joy   Laughter found the mornings that brought the meaning to his life   Night before she left sleep came and found that Waycross country boy   With dreams of Georgia cotton and a California wife      Sunday morning found him 'neath the red light at her door   A right cross sent him reelin' and put him face down on the floor   In place of Mabel Joy he found a merchant mad marine   He said, "Your Georgia neck is red but Sonny you're still green"      He turned twenty one in a gray rock Federal prison   The judge had no mercy on this Waycross, Georgia boy   Starin' at those four gray walls in silence, Lord he'd listen   To the midnight freight he knew could take him back to Mabel Joy      Sunday morning found him '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, "She don't live here no more, she left this house   Four years ago, she was lookin' for some Georgia farm boy"