me and earl was haulin’ chickens
on the flatbed out of wiggins
and we’d spent all night on the uphill side
of 7 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 948 peterbilt screamed to life
we woke up the chickens
4
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 burntout 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
5
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
6
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 usdaapproved cluckers
you wanna hit second
wolf creek pass
way up on the great divide
truckin’ on down the other side
7
well earl grabbed on the shifter
and he stabbed ‘er into fifth gear
and then the chromiumplated
fullyilluminated genuine accessory shift knob
come right off in his hand
i says you wanna screw that thing back on earl
8
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
9
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
0
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
4
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
5
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
6
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
Artist: C W Mccall
Year: 1975
Decade: 70s
Language: en
Word Count: 369