What exactly happened in Mickey Newbury's "San Francisco Mabel Joy?"
Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by Folknik, Mar 28, 2018.
Folknik
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Location:Walhalla, SC, United States
"San Francisco Mabel Joy" is one of Mickey Newbury's most brilliantly crafted songs. It tells a story, but one of the most remarkable things about it is that it leaves certain things out of the narrative and makes us read between the lines. However, I find parts of it rather unclear.
1. After hopping a freight train in Waycross, GA and winding up in L.A., a 16-year-old farm boy finds comfort in the arms of Mabel Joy who is obviously a prostitute (as evidenced by the references to "the red light at her door").
"On the night before she left, sleep came and left that Waycross country boy with dreams of Georgia cotton and a California wife." Why did she leave and where did she go?
2.... (Continues)
I have a couple comments in regard to the post by "L.E." on 2021/4/8:
1. This page states that Mickey Newbury's song San Francisco Mabel Joy is an "anti-war" song. If that is true, then I believe the reason the Georgia boy is sent to federal prison is that he was a draft dodger, although I don't think he did it intentionally. Rather, I get the impression that he was a little bit "dumb" and just didn't know any better - maybe kind of like the character Forrest Gump. And I suppose the prostitute Mabel Joy was a little bit the same. Other than that possibility, I don't see anything else in the content of this song's lyrics that would make it anti-war.
2. I too wonder how the Georgia boy was shot before the end of the song, but it was probably not from escaping prison. I don't think he would have been able to make it alive all the way from prison in Grayrock, Arkansas to Los Angeles with a bullet in his side, and especially not by hopping freight trains.
Testo e musica / Lyrics and music / Paroles et musique / Sanat ja sävel: Mickey Newbury
Album / Albumi: Looks Like Rain
Looks Like Rain is a 1969 concept album by singer-songwriter Mickey Newbury. After recording his debut album with RCA, Newbury was dissatisfied with the resulting album and left RCA to pursue a style closer to his tastes. Recorded at Cinderella Sound, as his next two albums would be, the result is widely considered his first real recording and represents a peak in the singer songwriter movement, especially for Nashville. The sound and style of the record would be highly influential during the Outlaw Movement during country music in the 1970s especially on albums by David Allan Coe and Waylon Jennings. Linking the tracks with delicate arrangements and liberal amount of atmosphere (almost all tracks feature rain sound effects), the record contains some of Newbury's most... (Continues)
Today, there's no salvation, the band's packed up and gone, (Continues)
