When You're 21

As I look around me at unfamiliar faces my mind goes back to my boyhood days

And the lust and the crazy far off places

Oh the simple country boy to a life of disgrace

I was raised on a farm way down in Louisiana down where the sweet magnolias grow

Just me and Mud and mama and papa little blue eyed Judy who lived down the road

I got Judy in trouble in the early days of summer

Oh she and mama cried and begged me not to go

Later on someone told me Mud and Judy got married

And they had a little girl with hair shining gold

I drank and I gambled and I knew many women I lived too fast for a boy just 21

And then one night I shot a man in Reno the very first time I had ever far to go

Mud came to see me last Sunday morning

He said Judy and the baby were waiting outside

His eyes filled with tears when I asked about mama

He said mama's heart's been broken she just laid down and died

I hear a cell door open soon it will be over I'll have to pay for the wrongs I have done

To Mud and Judy and mama and papa

And I'll hope you'll remember this when you're 21

And I'll hope you'll remember this when you're 21