The Maltese Raven

once upon a nighttime foggy, while i brooded dark and groggy

over bills that needed paying

and a backlot of cases I got a call

it’s some bill collector, I was saying

a shyster, who at this hour makes his call

Angry and bitter I took the call

to answer I was not paying

I would be paying them all of nothing

On the line A voice was saying

Just the single word “Macguffin”

yeah still i recall that muggy may

when sweat was like a saxophone playing

hot and all night long

from the nightclub there was playing

Some jazz, and the torch singers song

And the lyrics I heard, I did not get wrong

The singer sang a song about loving

Some gosh darn thing called a Macguffiin

In the alley two dogs were baying

when a rat-face fellow came in.

Like he just come from a mugging

And the word that he was naming,

That on his mug lips was playing

Was the single word “MacGuffin”

What is this Macguffin I cried

Rat-face pulled a gat, and Rat-face died

When from the darkened doorway

Came a blasting, a blasting from some 45

I knelt to hear the punk’s final words, they were nothing

But the three imponderable syllables ‘Macguffiin’