Troggs fans, I need some help with lyrics to Evilj

So, a long, long, time ago, in a land far away… mid 1960s, in my first youth, I bought a Troggs album, Wild Thing with A Girl Like You. The last song on side one is Evil. It is a great blues guitar number (and I think the best song on the record). I am starting to transcribe the piece and write down the lyrics but I am having some difficulty with a few words or phrases. Maybe it is some British slang that I just have not heard before. Anyway… I am hoping someone on this forum has the album and can help me out.
Here are the lyrics as I hear them with dashes for the words or phrases I just can’t seem to get:

Evil
Verse 1
Well warned you pretty baby about messin’ with me
I’m about as evil as any man can be
When I come to see you tryin’ to have a good time
------- gets scared and breaks into a run
Chorus
Well I’m evil little darlin’
I’m so evil little darlin’
I’m so evil little darlin’
That my shadows to scared to follow me
Verse 2
Well I met a man today in the street
He said his name was preachin’ Pete
Said he ------ me on the jungle gym
Wrasslin’ grizzly bears in the hole that I’m in
Chorus
Cool instrumental
Verse 3
Well a bartender --------- me and all down my hide
Lichter snichter (?) and I wadded up and died
Sixty inches across my chest
Don’t know nothin’ but the persons that’s best
Chorus

This is such a cool little blues number and I really have a mind to learn how to play it.
Please help if you can.

This any help?

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The first word sounds like “shadow” to me, and shadow is mentioned in the chorus as well. For the second, my guess is “Said he’d call me, oh, Jungle Jim”, so that both characters have alliteration in their names.

I think that in the third verse it’s not “bartender”, but something about a bar, and this bar is referred to as “sixty inches across my chest” as if the narrator was impaled. But that’s really just a guess.

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Excellent! I knew this forum would come through. I looked all over and could not come up with those lyrics.
Thank-you, thank-you!!!

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Boa constrictor

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That’s really useful, added to my favourites!

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I’ve listened to “Evil” by The Troggs for over 50 years and have never been able to understand parts of the lyrics. I’ve searched the internet far and wide and nowhere have I found something that I thought was entirely correct (I came across this post through one such search!).

Anyway, there is a Troggs songbook from 1966 that has the lyrics but the only listings I saw for it were in the range of several hundred dollars. Fortune smiled and I came across one on Ebay for $20.00 and I snatched it up so that I could finally answer the question “What is he singing?”

Well “ChasetheDream”…here is what the songbook says the lyrics are (I never would have gotten the line about the snake right!):

Evil by The Troggs

Well I warned you pretty baby ‘bout a messin’ with me
Well I’m about as evil as any man can be
When I call to see her, try’n to have a litte fun
Shadow gets scared and it breaks into a run

Well I’m evil little darlin’
I’m so evil little darlin’
I’m so evil little darlin’
And my shadow’s too scared to follow me

Well I met a man today in the street
Said his name, it was a Preachin’ Pete
Said he’d call me old Jungle Jim
Found some grizzly bears and run the whole lot in

Well a bar kind of spotted been painted down through my hide
A boa constrictor snake it bit my wart off and died
Sixty inches across my chest
I don’t know nothing but the good Lord knows best

FYI - The song was written by American record producer Shelby Singleton who was involved in a number of hits such as “Hey Paula” and “Harper Valley PTA” and ended up buying Sun Records from Sam Phillips.

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Welcome to the community, Easy, and thank-you for the lyrics!
Great score on the Troggs songbook.
Enjoy :smiling_face_with_sunglasses: :guitar: :guitar: