The Cluck Came Back by Lin in Kansas


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The Song Challenge: Chicken Of The Living Dead? -- Kay Martin, a secretary to a New Zealand MP, got the fright of her life a few weeks ago. According to the Auckland Sunday Star, she and a friend were chatting over a drink when they heard a chicken squawking. The bird sounded in some distress, so they went outside to investigate, thinking perhaps that it had escaped from one of the neighbors. But, there were no chickens anywhere. Then Martin realized with horror that the sound was coming from her own kitchen - coming, in fact, from the oven, where she had put a chicken in to roast half an hour earlier. "It was as if it was shrieking at me from its grave," she says. "It was so bizarre I just froze." As they approached the oven, the squawking reached a crescendo. They took the tray out, and as the chicken began to cool, the squawking died away. Martin chopped the neck off and threw it in the sink. She noticed that the vocal chords were intact. "Steam was coming up the neck from the stuffing," says Martin, and this had caused the dead bird to squawk. She has not cooked chicken since. P.S. TO ALL CHALLENGE!RS: If any of you are looking to qualify for the 'Two-Fer' Award (or better), check out SONG CHALLENGE! Part 8, Part 22, and Part 42 on the Song Challenge!s Past page, and see how you can work this Challenge! and one or more of these past hoo-haws into a song . . . It's a Double Dawg Dare, so ya can't turn it down! '-) -- Á.

The Cluck Came Back by Lin in Kansas
(Tune: "The Cat Came Back"—very loosely!)

Ms. Kay Martin had trouble all her own
She'd bought a range-bred chicken to cook up in her home
She'd dressed that bird up special and stuck it in a pan
Thinking it would be good eating for her and her man.

They'd begun to relax with wine and coy flirting
When they heard a mournful sound that was both distressed and hurting
It came from close at hand, from somewhere in the kitchen
"Sure smells good, honey, but...the oven is bitchin'!"

CHORUS:
'Cause the cluck came back, oh yeah, the cluck came back!
The bird it was a goner, but the cluck came back,
It just wouldn't stay away!

Kay's mind was spinning, her face turned pasty pale
But though she feared to look, her courage did not fail.
She opened up the oven, yanked out fowl and pan
Tried to chop its neck off, and that's when the fun began.

CHORUS

The farmer down the way came up with his shotgun
Said "I can fix this problem, put that bird on the run."
He loaded up his shotgun with nails and dynamite
And blew that roasted carcass plumb out of sight.

There were 97 pieces of the bird upon the ground
And every single piece was still making that weird sound
So Kay put them in a sack and buried them in the park
Where they rested quietly until long about dark—

Then....

The cluck came back! F**k! The cluck came back!
The bird it was a goner, but the cluck came back
It just wouldn't stay away!

Now Kay's house is haunted, and she's had to move away
Hoping that that awful sound will disappear some day.
If you pass by on the street, and listen carefully,
You can hear, inside the house, from oh so far away—

(Fading into the distance...) CLUCK, cluck, cluck, CLUCK, cluck, cluck, CLUCK, cluck, cluck...