(Newbury/ Costerman)
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His daddy was an honest man, just a red dirt Georgia farmer.
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His mother lived her short life having kids and baling hay.
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He had fifteen years and he ached inside to wander,
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so he jumped a freight in Waycross and wound up in L.A.
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The cold nights had no pity on that Waycross, Georgia farm boy.
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Most days he went hungry, then the summer came.
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He met a girl known on the Strip as San Francisco's Mabel Joy.
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Destitution's child born of an L.A. street called shame.
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Growing up came easy in the arms of Mabel Joy
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Laughter found their mornings, brought a meaning to his life
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Yes, the night before she left, sleep came and gave that Waycross country boy
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a dream of Georgia cotton and a California wife.
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Sunday morning found him standing 'neath the red light at her door,
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when a right cross sent him reeling, put him face down on the floor
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In place of Mabel Joy he found a merchant mad marine
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who growled "Your Georgia neck is red, aw, but sonny, you're still green."
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He turned twenty-one in a gray rock federal prison.
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The old judge had no mercy for a Waycross country boy.
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Staring at those four gray walls in silence,
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Lord, he'd just listen for the midnight freight he knew could take him back to Mabel Joy.
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Sunday morning found him lying 'neath the red light at her door,
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with a bullet in his side he cried, "Have you seen Mabel Joy?"
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Stunned and shaken, someone said, "Why she don't live here no more.
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She left this house four years today, they say she's looking for some Georgia farm boy."
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San Francisco Mabel Joy
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John Denver |