Poor Chicken

A                 G           F
One day a month or two ago
My baby called me on the phone.
She said she’d cook us a chicken up.
She didn’t want to spend the night alone.
E            D         C]
I took a bus on over to her place
And she let me in with a smile.
We just stood there in the doorway
[Bb                                 C-G-A]
And hugged and kissed a while.

Well, I took the chicken out of the sack
After making sure my hands were clean.
I said it was the biggest chicken
That I had ever seen.
And then we put that chicken
In a big brass pot with a cover.
Every once in a while between slugs of gin
We’d go and turn it over.

We just sat there in that kitchen.
It didn’t matter what we said.
I loved the way my baby’s hair
Twined around her head.
And then we played some music.
It didn’t matter what we played.
And then we took the chicken out
And we sat down and ate.

I woke up late next morning.
My baby was a little sad.
She wanted to save the bones for soup,
Cause that was all we had.
But we left that chicken out all night,
And I guess it got too hot.
And my baby said that it had gone bad and that we
Had to throw it out.

Next time I saw my baby

She was looking just a little pale.
We couldn’t seem to talk too much.
The words just seemed to fail.
She looked so white and shriveled up,
I said, “Is my baby dead?” [She looked to be half dead]
But I still loved the way her hair
Twined around her head.

1978? for my band 7Hz, with Stephen Phelps