Wolf Creek Pass - C.W. McCall

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