Well, I quit my job down at the car wash,

Left my mama a goodbye note,

By sundown I'd left Kingston,

With my guitar under my coat,

I hitchhiked all the way down to Memphis,

Got a room at the YMCA,

For the next three weeks I went huntin' them nights,

Just lookin' for a place to play,

Well, I thought my pickin' would set 'em on fire,

But nobody wanted to hire a guitar man.



Well, I nearly 'bout starved to death down in Memphis,

I run outta money and luck,

So I bought me a ride down to Macon, Georgia,

On a overloaded poultry truck,

I thumbed on down to Panama City,

Started pickin' out some o' them all night bars,

Hopin' I could make myself a dollar,

Makin' music on my guitar,

I got the same old story at them all night piers,

There ain't no room around here for a guitar man

We don't need a guitar man, son



So I slept in the hobo jungles,

Roamed a thousand miles of track,

Till I found myself in Mobile Alabama,

At a club they call Big Jack's,

A little four-piece band was jammin',

So I took my guitar and I sat in,

I showed 'em what a band would sound like,

With a swingin' little guitar man.

Show 'em, son



If you ever take a trip down to the ocean,

Find yourself down around Mobile,

Make it on out to a club called Jack's,

If you got a little time to kill,

Just follow that crowd of people,

You'll wind up out on his dance floor,

Diggin' the finest little five-piece group,

Up and down the Gulf of Mexico,

Guess who's leadin' that five-piece band,

Well, wouldn't ya know, it's that swingin' little guitar man.