Kenny Rogers - San Francisco Mabel Joy lyrics

His daddy was an honest man
Red dirt Georgia farmer
His mama lived her short life
Having kids and baling hay
He had fifteen years
An ache inside to wander
He hopped a freight in Waycross
Wound up in LA
Lord, the cold nights had no pity
On a 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
Destitutions child born of an
LA street called shame
Growing up came quietly in the
Arms of Mabel Joy
Laughter found their mornings
Brought a meaning to his life
Yes, 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 of her door
When a right cross sent him reeling
Put him face down on the floor
In place of Mabel Joy he
Found a merchant mad marine
He growled that Georgia neck is red
But sonny your still green
He turned twenty-one in a
Gray rock federal prison
The old judge had no mercy
For a Waycross Georgia boy
Starin' at those four gray
In silence he would listen
That midnight freight he knew would take
Him back to Mabel Joy
Sunday morning found him lyin' 'neath the
Red light of her door
With a bullet in his side he
Cried have you seen Mabel Joy
Stunned and shaken someone said she's
Not here no more
She left this house four years today
They say she's looking for
Some Georgia farm boy