CALLAHAN’S BAR

Lyrics: Jordin T. Kare (c) 1980
Music: “Oh, Susanna“

There is a bar called Callahan’s; it’s really quite a place.
There’s aliens there every night, from every world and race.
And when the puns start flying, which they do at quite a rate.

Not even steel-jawed robots can quite keep their faces straight.

CHORUS:
Spider, oh Spider, why won’t you tell us where
Callahan’s is hidden? Then we’ll do our drinking there.*

A time-traveler comes in each week and buys a couple beers.
He drinks them down, then taps his belt, and promptly dissapears.
Next week, same time, he’s back again, still potted to the ears.
He’s been on one long bender for some twenty thousand years.

There is a guy with funny eyes. His name is Michael Finn.
He carries quite an arsenal tucked underneath his skin.
His masters had him programmed once to do the whole Earth in
And the only thing that stopped him was a glass of homemade gin.

A frigid-blodded meathane breather** wandered in one night.
And announced to one and all that he was looking for a fight.
Mike said, “I’ll have no fighting here, in any shape or form.”

And with a single mighty blow, he knocked the fellow... warm?

A large gray wolf paced to the bar, and ordered in a growl.
Mike dusted off an old brown jug; he gave a joyful howl.
One swallow, and there stood a man; ’twas quite a trick to pull.
But the liquor it was moonshine, and the bottle it was full.

Doc Webster, feeling gene-ial, once told us of the day
He mixed chromosomes from vegetables with canine DNA.
He crossed Lassie with a cantaloupe. Said Mike, “So wa’d’ja get?”
“Why a melon-collie baby... and one hell of a startled vet.”

Author’s Notes:

*Spider published parts of this song in “The Callahan Touch“ with a revised chourus (since one could hardly have the characters in the novel, in Mary’s Place, asking the author how to get to Callahan’s):

Michael’s Tavern...
Is gone beyond repair...
So it’s time to race to Marys Place...
and do our Drinking there.

Revised Chorus:

Joy or sorrow, it’s better if you share,
So let’s go down to Callahan’s and do
our drinking there.

**When I wrote the song originally, I had relatively recently finished the Lensman series by E. E. (Doc) Smith, which had a methane breathing charactar named “Nadreck. So the original version read:

A frigid-blooded Nadreck-type who
wandered in one night
Announced to one and all that he was
looking for a fight

But Doc Smith was never universally read, even in fandom, and is less and less well known, so in recent years I’ve used the more generic “frigid-blooded methane breather“

There are other verses, including one written by Spider for “The Callahan Touch“, but except for one about a klein bottle (given to me at a con by an unknown fan) that I occaisionally sing in person, I have not encouraged them - it would be too easy to end up with another “Old Time Religeon“