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 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
Lookin' for a place to play

Well, I thought my pickin'
Would set 'em on fire
But nobody wanted to hire
guitar man

Well, I nearly 'bout starved to death down in Memphis
 [bad word] out of money and luck
So I bummed me a ride down to Macon, Georgia
On a overloaded poultry [bad word] 

I 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 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 the hobo jungles
I bummed a thousand miles of track
Till I found myself in Mobile, Alabama
In a club they call Big Jack's

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

Yeah

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
Till 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

And guess who's leadin'
That five piece band
Why, wouldn't you know
It's that swingin' little guitar man, yeah