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 a hauntin them nightclubs 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 bummed me a ride down to macon georgia on a overloaded poultry truck i thumbed on down to panama city started checkin 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