Having trouble deciphering this? Check out my guide to reading chord charts. You can find all my guitar chords and tabs here.  Also, you can subscribe to my newsletter so that you get an email when I update my chord charts. And click here if you need Seattle guitar lessons.

Up on Cripple Creek

Robbie Robertson

 

Intro:  / A - - - / (x4)

 

        A                                             D   

When I get off of this mountain, you know where I want to go?

A                           D                               E

Straight down the Mississippi River to the Gulf of Mexico.

A                                                   D

To Lake Charles, Louisianna, little Bessie, a girl who I once knew.

A                                D                         E                        

She told me just to come on by if there's anything that she could do.

 

Chorus:

A

Up on Cripple Creek, she sends me.

D

If I spring a leak, she mends me.

E

I don't have to speak, she defends me.

F#m                      G

A drunkard's dream if I ever did see one.

 

A                                                    D

Good luck had just stung me, to the race track I did go.

A               D                                E

She bet on one horse to win and I bet on another to show.

A                                          D

The odds were in my favor, I had them five to one.

A                 D                                     E

That nag to win came around the track, sure enough she had won.

 

Chorus

 

A                                                 D

I took up all of my winnings and I gave my little Bessie half.

A                             D                       E

She tore it up and threw it in my face just for a laugh.

A                                                           D

There's one thing in the whole wide world I sure would like to see.

A                                D                               E

That's when that little love of mine dips her doughnut in my tea.

 

Chorus

 

A                                                                             D

Me and my mate we were back at the shack, we had Spike Jones on the box.

A                                       D                         E

She says, "I can't take the way he sings, but I love to hear him talk."

A                                                               D

Now that just gave my heart a throb to the bottom of my feet.

A                         D                              E

And I swore as I took another pull, my Bessie can't be beat.

 

Chorus

 

Yodel over:

/ A - - - / D - - - / (x2)

 

                A                                         D

There's a flood out in California and up north it's freezing cold.

A                     D                  E

And this living on the road is getting pretty old.

        A                                                      D

So I guess I'll call up my big mama, tell her I'll be rolling in.

               A                             D                           E

But you know, deep down, I'm kind of tempted  to go and see my Bessie again.

 

Chorus

 

Yodel over:

/ A - - - / D - - - / (x4)

 

End on A




This file is the author's own work and represents his interpretation of this song. It's intended solely for private study, scholarship or research.