Wolf Creek Pass
(Bill Fries, Chip Davis)
Me an’ Earl was haulin’ chickens on a flatbed outta Wiggins, and we’d spent all night on the uphill side a’ thirty-seven miles a’ hell called Wolf Creek Pass. Which is up on the Great Divide?
We’s settin’ there suckin’ toothpicks, a-drinkin’ Nehis and onion soup mix. I says, "Earl, let’s mail a card to Mother an’ send them chickens on down t’other side. Yeah, let’s give them hens a ride."
[Chorus]
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, then a couple’a boobs with a thousand cubes in a nineteen-forty-eight Peterbilt screamed to life. We woke up the chickens.
We roared up off a’ that shoulder sprayin’ pine cones, rocks, an’ boulders, an’ put four hundred head a’ them Rhode Island reds an’ a couple a’ burnt-out roosters on the line. Look out below; ’cause here we go!
[Chorus]
Wolf Creek Pass, way up on the Great Divide
Truckin’ on down the other side
Well, we commenced ta truckin’ an’ them hens commenced to cluckin’ an’ then Earl took out a match an’ scratched his pants an’ 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 or you gonna kill us. Just make one mistake and it’s the Pearly Gates for them eight-five crates a’ USDA-approved cluckers. You wanna hit second gear, please?"
[Chorus]
Wolf Creek 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 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 a’ his cigar and dropped on down, sorta rolled around, and lit in the cuff of Earl’s pants and burned a hole in his sock. Yeah, sorta set him right on fire.
I looked on outta the winda and I started a-countin’ phone poles, goin’ by at the rate of four to the seventh power. 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 hands 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 brakes real soon, they gonna have to pick us up with a stick and a spoon."
Well, Earl rared back, and cocked his leg, stepped as down as hard as he could on the brake, and the pedal went clean to the floor, and it stayed right there on the floor. He says it was sorta like steppin’ on a plum.
Well, from there on down it’s just not real pretty: it was hairpin county and switchback city. One of ’em looked like a can full a’ worms; another one looked like malaria germs. An’ 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 an’ eggs through a hen, we took that top row of chickens off slicker than scum off a Lousiana swamp. Went down and around and around and down ’til we run outta ground at the edge of town. Bashed on into the side of a feed store in downtown Pagosa Springs.
[Chorus]
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
The original recording of “Wolf Creek Pass” was released on the album Wolf Creek Pass. That version can be found on the albums C.W. McCall’s Greatest Hits and The Best of C.W. McCall.