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Black water Hattie lived back in the swamp
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Where the strange green reptiles crawl
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Snakes hang thick from the cypress trees
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Like sausage on a smokehouse wall
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Where the swamp is alive with a thousand eyes
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An' all of them watching you
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Stay off the track to Hattie's Shack in the back of the Black Bayou
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Way up the road from Hattie's Shack
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Lies a sleepy little Okeechobee town
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Talk of swamp witch Hattie lock you in when the sun go down
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Rumours of what she'd done, rumours of what she'd do
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Kept folks off the track of hattie's shack
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In the back of the Black Bayou
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One day brought the rain and the rain stayed on
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And the swamp water overflowed
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'skeeters and the fever grabbed the town like a fist
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Doctor Jackson was the first to go
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Some say the plague wasa brought by Hattie
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There was talk of a hang'n too
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But the talk got shackled by the howls and the cackles
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From the bowels of the Black bayou
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Early one morn 'tween dark and dawn when shadows filled the sky
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There came an unseen caller on a town where road run dry
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You'd swear there was found a big black round
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Vat full of gurgling brew
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Whispering sounds as the folk gathered round
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"It came from the Black Bayou"
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There ain't much pride when you're trapped inside
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A slowly sink'n ship
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Scooped up the liquid deep and green
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And the whole town took a sip
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Fever went away and the very next day the skies again were blue
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Let's thank old hattie for sav'n our town
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We'll fetch her from the Black Bayou
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Party of ten of the town's best men headed for Hattie's Shack
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Said Swamp Witch magic was useful and good
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And they're gonna bring hattie back
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Never found Hattie and they never found the shack
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Never made the trip back in
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There was a parchment note they found tacked to a stump
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Said don't come look'n again.
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Swamp Witch
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Jim Stafford |