D C G Bb D

[Verse]
    D                              G                D
His Daddy was a simple man, just a red dirt Georgia farmer,
                                                         A
His Momma spent her shorter life, havin' kids and balin' hay.
D                            G              D
He had fifteen years, and an ache inside to wander,
                                                      A
So he hopped a freight in Waycross, and wound up in L.A.

[Verse]
D                              G                 D
Cold nights had no pity, for a Waycross, Georgia farm boy,
                                             A
So most days he went hungry, then the summer came.
       D                                 A                  D
And he met a girl known on the strip, as 'Francisco's Mabel Joy,
                               C                  A
Destitutions child, born of an L.A. street called Shame.

[Verse]
   D                               G             D
So growin' up came quietly, in the arms of Mabel Joy,
                                                      A
Laughter found their mornings, brought meaning to his life.
    D                                     G                   D
The night before she left, sleep came and left that Waycross, country boy,
                                     C          A
With dreams of Georgia cotton and a, California wife.

[Refrain]
G                                                      D
Sunday morning found him standin' 'neath the red light at her door,
                                                              A
When a right cross sent him reelin', put him face down on the floor.
       G                                             D
In the place of Mabel Joy, he found a merchant mad marine,
                                            C                   A
Who growled, "Your Georgia neck is red but, sonny, you're still green".

[Verse]
D                          G                 D
He turned twenty-one, in a gray rock fed'ral prison,
                                                    A
That old judge had no mercy for a, Waycross Georgia boy.
D                                    G                D
Starin' at those four gray walls, in silence he would listen,
                                                 C             A
To that midnight freight he knew would take him, back to Mabel Joy.

[End Refrain]
G                                                      D
Mornin' found him standin' 'neath the red light at her door,
                                           C              A
With a bullet in his side, he cried, "Have you seen Mabel Joy?"
G                                                        D
Stunned and shaken someone said, "Why, she's not here no more,
                                           C                 A
She left this house four years today, they say she's lookin' for,
             D          D D D
Some Georgia farm boy."