Lyrics Wolf Creek Pass - C.W. McCall

Wolf Creek Pass

Me and Earl was haulin' chickens
On the flatbed out of Wiggins
And we’d spent all night on the uphill side
Of 37 miles of hell called Wolf Creek Pass
Which is up on the Great Divide
We was sittin' there suckin' toothpicks
Drinkin' Nehis and onion soup mix
And I says, «Earl, let’s mail a card to mother
And then send them chickens on down the other side
Yeah, let’s give 'em a ride»
Wolf Creek 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 Peterbilt screamed to life
We woke up the chickens
We roared up off of that shoulder
Spraying pine cones, rocks, and boulders
And put four hundred head of them Rhode Island Reds
And a couple of burnt-out roosters on the line
Look out below 'cause here we go
Wolf Creek Pass
Way up on the Great Divide
Truckin' on down the other side
Well, we commenced to truckin'
And them hens commenced to cluckin'
And 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»
I says, «Earl, this hill can spill us
You better slow down, you gon' kill us
Just make one mistake and it’s the pearly gates
For them 85 crates of USDA-approved cluckers
You wanna hit second?»
Wolf Creek Pass
Way up on the Great Divide
Truckin' on down the other side
Well, Earl grabbed on the shifter
And he stabbed 'er into fifth gear
And then the chromium-plated
Fully-illuminated genuine accessory shift knob
Come right off in his hand
I says, «You wanna screw that thing back on, Earl?»
He was tryin' to thread it on there
When the fire fell off of his cigar
And dropped on down, sorta rolled around
And then lit the cuff of Earl’s pants
And burned a hole in his sock
Yeah, sorta set him right on fire
I looked on out of the window
And I started countin' phone poles
Going by at the rate of four to the seventh power
Well, I put two and two together
And added twelve and carried five
Come up with twenty two thousand telephone poles an hour
I looked at Earl and his eyes was wide
His lip was curled and his leg was fried
And his hand was froze to the wheel
Like a tongue to a sled in the middle of a blizzard
I says, «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 going to have to pick us up with a stick and 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
He 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 the chickens was stacked to thirteen nine
Well, we shot that tunnel at a hundred and ten
Like gas through a funnel and eggs through a hen
We took that top row of chickens off slicker than the scum off a Louisiana swamp
Went down and around, around and down
And we run out of ground at the edge of town
Bashed into the side of the feed store
Downtown Pagosa Springs
Wolf Creek Pass
Way up on the Great Divide
Truckin' on down the other side
Wolf Creek Pass
Way up on the Great Divide
Truckin' on down the other side