San Francisco Mabel Joy

Lord, his daddy was an honest man
A redwood Georgia farmer
His mama lived a short life
Having kids and bailing hay

He had fifteen years
And he ached inside to wander
He jumped afraid and weak cross
And wound up in a lake

Oh, the cold nights had no pity
On that way crossed Georgia farm boy
Most days he went hungry
And then the summer came

He met a girl know on the strip
At San Francisco's Mabel Joy
Destitution's child born of
An LA street called Shane

Growin' up came quietly
In the arms of Mabel Joy
Laughter found in mornings
It brought a meaning to his life

Lord, on the night before she left sleep Kane
And left that way crossed country boy
With dreams of Georgia cotton
And a California wife

Sunday morning found him standing in ease
The red light at her door
A right cross sent him reelin'
Put him face down on the floor

In place of his Mabel Joy he found
A merchant memory
Who ground your Georgia neckies red
But sunny, your still green

He turned twenty one
In a Gray Rock Federal Prison
The old judge had no mercy
On that way crossed Georgia boy

Staring at those four gray walls
In silence he would listen
To that midnight freight
He knew could take him back to Mabel Joy

Sunday morning found him lying in ease
The red light at her door
With a bullet in his side
He cried, abusing Mabel Joy

Stunned and shaken, someone says
Son she's not here no more
She left this house four years today
They say she's lookin' for some Georgia farm boy