Uploaded May 2015 | Updated September 2026, 1 hour ago

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LYRICS:
His daddy was an honest man a red dirt Georgia farmer
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 in Waycross and wound up in LA

The cold nights had no pity on that Waycross Georgia farm boy
Most days 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 LA street called shame

Growing up came quietly in the arms of Mabel Joy
Laughter found their mornings it brought a meaning to his life
On 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 and 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 Georgia boy
Just staring at those four grey walls in silence he would listen
To that 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."

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#notautotuned #notpitchcorrected

Words & Music by Mickey Newbury. My cover version of the great Mickey Newbury song, 'San Francisco Mabel Joy'