Interpret:

Kenny Rogers

Album:

The Gambler

His daddy was an honest man, 
red dirt Georgia farmer
His mamma 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 L.A.


Lord the cold nights had no pity 
on a Waycross Georgia farmboy
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 L.A. 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 merine, 
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