Mudcat was an old man
Lived down along the river by the big sand bar
Mudcat was a soul man
Played the Delta Blues on a slide guitar
He'd sit out on the front porch
Of his shack way back in the middle of the longleaf pines
With a beat up Stella guitar
And a half a gallon of homemade wine

He could make a guitar crawl
He could make a guitar fly
He could make you want to dance
He could make you want to cry
When he played

He used to run with Robert Johnson
That's how he learned to play the blues
The only time he'd talk about it
Was after he had him a drink or two
He said we rambled this here country
Playing every ol' funky kind of backwood juke
From Sweet Home Chicago
To California and on back down to Baton Rouge

And it was one time around midnight
When the moon was going down
We was walking past this crossroads
Near this little Mississippi town
I heard something walking behind me
And when I turned around

Somethin' come floatin' up out of the swamp
And my knees started knockin' and my hat fell off
Fire started poppin' up out of the ground
Somethin' in the trees goin' round and round
Felt an ice-cold hand swipe across my face
Somebody grabbed ahold of my guitar case
Something terrible started screamin' way back in the woods
I took off a-runnin' just as fast as I could
There was big things bumpin' and little things jumpin'
And a light comin' round the bend
I cried Lord Jesus, get me out of here
And I ain't ever coming back again

And then he'd get this far away look
And that's where the story would always end
The only other thing he'd ever say about it was
He never did see Robert Johnson again
Well, the old man died a few years ago
And the note he wrote was the last thing he ever did
He said, "My heart belongs to Jesus
But give my guitar to the kid."

Now I sit out on the front porch
Of my cabin in the pines
With a beat up Stella guitar
And a half a gallon of wine
And I play

Some nights when I'm hittin' the licks and there's a full moon shinin' down across the woods and the breeze smells like swamp water I can almost hear that old man say

Somethin' come floatin' up out of the swamp
And my knees started knockin' and my hat fell off
Fire started poppin' up out of the ground
Somethin' in the trees goin' round and round
Felt an ice-cold hand swipe across my face
Somebody grabbed my guitar case
Something terrible started screamin' way back in the woods
I took off a-runnin' just as fast as I could
There was big things bumpin' and little things jumpin'
And a light comin' round the bend
I cried Lord Jesus, get me out of here
And I ain't ever coming back again

And he never did
Oh oh

He never did