Me an' Earl was haulin' chickens on a flatbed out
of Wiggins, and we'd spent all night on the uphill
side of thirty-seven miles of hell called Wolf
Creek Pass. Which is up on the Great Divide?

We was settin' there suckin' toothpicks, drinkin'
Nehi and onion soup mix, and I said, \"Earl, let's
mail a card to Mother then send them chickens on
down the other side. Yeah, let's give 'em 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, and then a couple'a boobs
with a thousand cubes in a nineteen-forty-eight
Peterbilt screamed to life. We woke up the
chickens.

Well, we roared up offa that shoulder sprayin'
pine cones, rocks, and boulders, and put four
hundred head of them Rhode Island reds and a
couple a' burnt-out roosters on the line. Look out
below; 'cause here we go!

Well, we commenced to truckin' and them hens
commenced to cluckin' and 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 purdy 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?\"

[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 then 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 window and I started
countin' phone poles, goin' 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 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 clear to the floor and stayed there,
right there on the floor. He said it was sorta
like steppin' on a plum.

Well, from there on down it just wasn't real
purdy: it was hairpin county and switchback city.
One of 'em looked like a can full'a 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, and 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 into the side of the 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