I’ve stayed in the front yard all my life
I want a peek at the back
Where it’s rough and untended and hungry weed grows
A girl gets sick of a rose

I want to go in the back yard now
And maybe down the alley
To where the charity children play
I want a good time today

They do some wonderful things
They have some wonderful fun
My mother sneers, but I say it’s fine
How they don’t have to go in at quarter to nine
My mother, she tells me that Johnnie Mae
Will grow up to be a bad woman
That George’ll be taken to Jail soon or late
(On account of last winter he sold our back gate)

But I say it’s fine. Honest, I do
And I’d like to be a bad woman, too
And wear the brave stockings of night-black lace
And strut down the streets with paint on my face