Wednesday, March 18, 2009

C. W. McCall...and chickens



I owned this album. Not a cassette or a CD, but vinyl. At one time I probably knew every word to every song on it. For whatever reason the lyrics to Wolf Creek Pass came to mind this morning and so I Googled it. Handy, this Google stuff. 

Here are the lyrics from Wolf Creek Pass by Bill Fries and Chip Davis. Anyone else feel all warm and fuzzy with memories when you read these?


Me an' Earl was haulin' chickens
On a flatbed outa Wiggins
And we had spent all night on the uphill side
Of thirty seven miles of hell called Wolf Crick Pass
Which was up on the great divide

And we was sittin' there suckin' toothpicks
And drinkin' Nehis an' onion soup mix
And I says "Earl, let's mail a card to mother
And then send them chickens on down t'other side"
Yeah, lets give them hens a ride

Wolf Crick Pass way up on the great divide
Truckin' on down, the other side

Well Earl put down his bottle
Mashed his foot down on the throttle
And then a couple of boobs, with a thousand cubes
In a 1948 Peterbuilt screamed to life
We woke up the chickens

We roared up off'n that shoulder
Sprayin' pine cones rocks 'n boulders
And put four hundred head of them Road Island Reds
And a couple of burnt out roosters on the line
Look out below...cause here we go

Wolf Crick Pass way up on the great divide
Truckin' on down, the other side

Well we commenced a truckin'
And them hens commenced a cluckin'
Then Earl took out a match, and scratched his pants
And lit up the unused half of a dollar cigar
And took a puff
Says "My ain't this pretty up here"

And I says "Earl this hill can spill us
You better slow down or you gonna kill us
Just make one mistake and it's the pearly gates
For them eighty five crates
Of USDA approved cluckers
You wanna hit second?"

Wolf Crick Pass way up on the great divide
Truckin' on down, the other side

Well Earl grabbed on the shifter
And he stabbed her into fifth gear
And then the chromium plated, fully illuminated
Genuine ac-cessory shift knob
Come right off in his hand
I says "you wana screw that thing back on Earl ?"

He was tryin' to thread it on there
When the fire fell off a his cigar
And dropped on down sorta rolled around
And lit the cuff of Earls pants
And burnt a whole in his sock
Yeah it sorta set him right on fire

I looked on outa the window
An' I started in a countin' phone poles
Goin' by at the rate of four to the seventh power
I put two an' two together
Added twelve, an' carried five
Come up with twenty two thousand telephone poles an hour

I looked at Earl an' his eyes was wide
His lip was curled and his leg was fried
And his hands was froze to the wheel
Like a tongue to a sled in the middle of a blizzard
And I said Earl I'm not the type to complain
But the time has come for me to explain
That if you don't apply some brake real soon
They're gonna have to pick us up with a stick an' a spoon

Well Earl rared back
Cocked his leg
Stepped down as hard as he could on the brake
And the pedal went clear to the floor
And stayed - right there on the floor
Says it's sorta like steppin' on a plum
Well from there on down it just wasn't real pretty
It was hairpin county and switchback city
One of 'em looked like a can full of worms
Another one looked like malaria germs
Right in the middle of the whole damn show
Was a real nice tunnel now wouldn't you know
Sign says clearance to the twelve foot line
But them chickens was stacked to thirteen nine
Well we shot that tunnel at a hundred an' ten
Like gas through a funnel an' eggs through a hen
An' we took that top row of chickens off
Slicker 'n the scum off a Louisiana swamp
Went down an' around an' around an' down
An' we run outta ground at the edge of town
An' bashed on into the side of a feed store
In downtown Pagosa Springs

Wolf Crick Pass way up on the great divide
Truckin' on down, the other side

Wolf Crick Pass way up on the great divide
Truckin' on down, the other side

1 comment:

  1. As the daughter of a trucker, I can tell you my Dad would have laughed and laughed at this. :-)

    ReplyDelete