Smokey Mountain Rattlesnake Retreat Lyrics

Ray Stevens Smokey Mountain Rattlesnake Retreat

Well me and Doris went on vacation
We decided we needed more than recreation
So we enrolled in a Bible camp retreat.

I got the directions and we took off
It only took six hours to get completely lost
Way back up in the mountains of east Tennessee.

Well it was getting real dark
And I was starting to fret.
Doris said look yonder bet that's it.
She pointed to the lights
To this little church way back in the brush.

An old man met us, I said just two
He escorted us down
to the very first pew
I said Doris I don't think this is the right place
She just said hush.

Well they preached a sermon and sang a song
Then they preached some more
And went on and on.
Nearly wore me out
I'd had about all I could take.

Then they pulled down the shades
Things quitted down.
This guy next to me punched me
Said here past this down
I turned to look and son of a gun
He handed me a snake.

Oh the night that me and Doris
Went running through the forest
Way back up in the hills of Tennessee.

Yeah we started making tracks
When they broke out that diamond back
It scared the devil out of poor old Doris and me .

He said take it man don't you believe
I said I believe all right I believe I'll leave.
And I reached for Doris but she done fainted away
White as a sheet.

Now I couldn't pick her up
And I couldn't find the door
And them rattlers were crawling
All around the floor.

And Friend that's when the spirit hit my feet
I started running down the aisles
And bouncing off the walls
Like somebody teed off a new golf ball
In a tiled bathroom
Friends I'll tell you I was moving on.

I'd run past Doris every minute or two
Trying to shake her awake her but it wasn't no use
For a while there I thought
The Lord had called the poor thing home.

Then somebody dropped a big one in her lap
Doris come too and something in her snapped
She grabbed that thing by the tail
And Commenced swinging it around her head

Then she gave it a crack like LashLaRue
The head came off and sailed across the room
Then she did a tap dance
On the rest of them suckers till they was all dead.

Well I grabbed her by the hand
And we headed for the car
When she hollered to the preacher,
I don't know who you are
Or where you came from
Or how you ever learn how to preach.

But let me tell you something
You old raggedy cat
You don't know nothing
About running a Bible Camp
And me and my husband
Are on our way to Daytona Beach.

Oh the night that me and Doris
Went running through the forest
Way back up in the hills of Tennessee.

Yeah we started making tracks
When they broke out that diamond back
It scared the devil out of poor old Doris and me.