Mabel Joy - 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 nights 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

And 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"

• Artist:Mabel Joy
• Album:the Border (1976)