Ray Wylie Hubbard - Snake Farm (Karaoke Version)

A karaoke version of Ray Wylie Hubbard's "Snake Farm" by request.
Any good songwriter knows when the muse strikes, write it down. For Ray Wylie Hubbard, it was maybe the 10,000th time he was driving southbound on Interstate 35 from New Braunfels toward San Antonio, passing Exit 182 at Engel Road and the so-big-you-can’t-miss-it sign that screamed “SNAKE FARM” in red and black letters. The words, meant to entice drivers to stop at the long-running roadside attraction, conjured the image of a farm full of snakes, and Hubbard physically shuddered.
“Actually, I went ‘Uggggghhhhhhh,’” he says, recalling the moment. Then inspiration struck. He thought to himself, “Just sounds nasty.” Why? “Because it’s a reptile house, not a cathedral,” he rationalized. “Yeah, pretty much is.”
His mind started racing. “Then it came to me: It’s a love song. It’s about a man who doesn’t like snakes, but he loves the woman who works at the Snake Farm,” says Hubbard, a resident of Wimberley, where all four venomous snakes found in Texas also reside.
“That’s true love,” he said. “So I thought, ‘What kind of woman would work at the Snake Farm?’ She’d dance like Little Egypt. She’d drink malt liquor. Have a tattoo of a python, probably eating a mouse. One of them would have a sailor hat that said Snake Farm.” As the song developed, he named her Ramona. “How come she works there? It’s got its charm. Nothing to do in the winter because the snakes are hibernating. And every once in a while, a kid gets bit.
“How do I end it?” Hubbard mused. “If he really loved her, and she said come on down here, he would go.”
“It all fell into place. I came home and wrote it down in about 15 minutes.” He dreamed up a snaky blues groove for the words and had himself a song.
That initial guttural response driving down I-35 turned out to be the hook to one of the hookiest songs Hubbard has ever written, and the punch line to the singalong chant “snake farm.” He recorded the song and released it on the album of the same name in 2006, and it has been part of his repertoire ever since-much like another song he wrote back in the 1970s, “Up Against the Wall Redneck Mother.”
Hubbard is no wannabe herpetologist, though. “I guess I’m not a snake fanatic, but they don’t bother me,” he allows. His only real-life connections are his free-range Medusa mane of hair and a rattlesnake tail that came with his old Gibson guitar. “It’s like a humidifier thing. Good mojo, too. I do have a pair of snake boots, but they’re pretty wore out.”
He had never been to the real Snake Farm before he wrote the song. Hubbard had heard the legend dating back to the ’60s-ask for change for a $100 bill at the counter, and you’ll be directed to trailers out back where a woman of ill repute awaits-but he didn’t put stock in the story. “Even if the legend was true, no way in hell was I going there,” he says.
The real Animal World & Snake Farm Zoo, as it is formally known, is a far cry from the Snake Farm of legend. The roadside attraction dates to 1967, before there was an interstate highway. It has grown since then-and grown up. Ramona, the trailers, and lingering reptile odor are nowhere to be found. The year after Hubbard released the album Snake Farm, the real version was purchased by Eric Trager, who updated and expanded the attraction. Today, it’s a sprawling private zoo with over 500 species of animals and state-of-the-art features including hands-on exhibitions scheduled throughout the day and week
(in summertime, the gator feedings on Sundays at 3 p.m. are particularly exciting). The core cinderblock-wall snake room remains, with 200 species on display.
“The first time I went in there, I realized the people were really nice, that they really cared about the snakes and the animals, that it wasn’t some kind of tourist trap,” Hubbard says. “I thought it was going to be a carny sideshow act.” Well, there is the rattlesnake pit, and don’t forget the cheesy Snake Farm T-shirts proudly worn by the New York punk band the Ramones.

[@mikebeard8505]

Just sounds nasty

[@Requesters_Karaoke]

He sure makes ya think about it 🤔. Love Ray Wylie Hubbaerd!