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