Joan Baez - San Francisco Mabel Joy Lyrics
His daddy was a simple man, just a red dirt Georgia farmerAnd his momma spent her young live havin kids and balin hayHe had fifteen years and an ache inside to wanderSo he hopped a freight in Waycross and wound up in L.A.Lord, the cold nights had no pity on a Waycross, Georgia farm boyMost days he went hungry then the summer cameHe met a girl known on the strip as San Franciscos Mabel JoyDestitutions child born of an L.A. street called "Shame"Growin up came quietly in the arms of Mabel JoyLaughter found their mornings brought meaning to his lifeYes the night before she left sleep came and left thatWaycross, Georgia boy with dreams of Georgia cotton and a California wifeSonday morning found him standin neath the red light at her doorWhen a right cross sent him reelin put him face down on the floorIn place of Mabel Joy he found a merchant mad marineWho growled, "Your Georgia neck is red but sunny, youre still green"He turned twenty-one in a grey rock fedral prisonThe old judge had no mercy for a Waycross, Georgia boyStarin at those four grey walls in silence he would listenTo that midnight freight he knew would take him back to Mabel JoySunday morning found him standin neath the red light at her doorWith a bullet in his side, he cried, "Have you seen Mabel Joy?"Stunned and shaken someone said, "Why shes not here no moreShe left this house four years today, they say shes lookin for some Georgia farm boy."Mickey NewburyCopyright 1969 by Acuff-Rose Publications, Inc.BMI 4:23