Well, I quit my job down at the car wash
And left my mama a goodbye note
By sundown, I'd left Kingston
With my guitar up under my coatI hitchhiked all the way down to Memphis
Got a room at the YMCA
For the next three weeks
I went a hauntin' them nightclubs
Lookin' for a place to playWell, I thought my pickin'
Would set 'em on fire
But nobody wanted to hire
A guitar manWell, 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 truckI thumbed on down to Panama City
Started checkin' out some of them all night bars
Hopin' I can make myself a dollar
Makin' music on my guitarGot 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
I bummed a thousand miles of track
Till I found myself in Mobile, Alabama
In a club they call Big Jack'sA 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, sonYeahSo 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
Till you got a little time to killJust 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 MexicoAnd guess who's leadin'
That five piece band
Why, wouldn't you know
It's that swingin' little guitar man, yeah