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