D C
Black water Hattie lived back in the swamp
G D
Where the strange green reptiles crawl.
D C
Snakes hang thick from the cypress trees
G D
Like sausage on a smokehouse wall.
D C
Where the swamp is alive with a thousand eyes
G
An all of them watching you
D C
Stay off the track to Hatties Shack
G D
In the back of the Black Bayou
D C
Way up the road from Hattie’s Shack
G F D
Lies a sleepy little Okeechobe town
D C
Talk of swamp witch Hattie lock you
G F D
In when the sun go down
D G
Rumors of what she’d done, rumors of what she’d do
D C
Kept folks off the track of Hattie’s shack
G F D
In the back of the Black Bayou
One day brought the rain and the rain stayed on
And the swamp water overflowed
Skeeters and the fever grabbed the town like a fist
Doctor Jackson was the first to go
Some say the plague was-a brought by Hattie,
there was talk of a hangin’ too
But the talk got shackled by the howls and the cackles
From the bowels of the Black bayou
