Three days east of LA

picked you up in my Chevrolet

it was suicide hitchhiking that way

it was your 18th birthday

and your daddy would have emptied his gun

if he knew half the things I'd done

me and his little girl on the run

drive into the rising sun

and I asked you "where you gonna go?"

lit a smoke and said you don't know

you're new life on the road

you were scared and it showed

[chorus:]

but who's to stop you, Mandy,

from coming to Carolina

come to caroline, mandy

come to caroline, mandy

come to caroline, mandy

with me

shared a bed in Tennessee

put my boot through a color tv

when you said you were leaving me

you had better things to see

and I know I ain't got one thin dime

and I've been prosing all your nursery rhymes

but pretty soon if we make good time

we'll be crossing that last state line

[chorus]

everything will turn out fine

if you come to caroline, mandy

with me

bridge:

you're a diamond

I'm a rusty nail

and I've been stepping on your fairy tail

at junction 40-23

and I wish that you would stay with me

[chorus]

everything will turn out fine

if you come to caroline, mandy

with me