Jerry Reed
"Guitar Man" lyrics

Guitar Man

Well, I quit my job down at the carwash
Left my mama a goodbye note
By sundown I'd left Kingston
With my guitar up under my coat

I hitchhiked all the way down to Memphis
Got a room at the YMCA
For the next three weeks
I went a haunting them night clubs
Looking for a place to play

Well, I thought my picking
Would set them on fire
But nobody wanted to hire
A guitar man

Well, I nearly bout starved to death
Down in Memphis
I run out of money and luck
So I bummed me a ride down to Macon Georgia
On a overloaded poultry truck

I thumbed on down to Panama City
Started checking out some of them all night bars
Hoping I can make myself a dollar
Making music on my guitar

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 hobo jungles
Bummed 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 jamming
So I took my guitar and I sat in
I showed them what a band would sound like
With a swinging little guitar man
Show them son

So if you ever take a trip down to the ocean
Find yourself down round Mobile
Well make it on out
To the 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
Digging the finest little five piece group
Up and down the Gulf of Mexico

And guess who's leading that five piece band
Why wouldn't you know
It's that swinging little guitar man
Yeah