Alert Listener Jim writes: “If Saturday night you were downtown, working for the FBI, your case would be prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney’s Office, not the DA man.”
Dear Jim: Thank you for writing. The narrator, who is working for the FBI, is in a bootlegging boozer, so it’s possible that he’s investigating illegal liquor trafficking, which is a federal crime — though, admittedly, one that normally would be the jurisdiction of the U.S. Treasury Department, not the Justice Department.
On the other hand, it’s a nest of bad men, so theoretically multiple offenses are occurring on the premises. For instance, somebody shooting a gun is usually a state crime — and thus the purview of the district attorney — unless it’s happening in conjunction with the federal crime that the FBI (and presumably the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms & Explosives) is investigating.
Obviously, the FBI agent’s expert testimony is going to help the DA close the nest of bad men, possibly with the involvement of the state liquor control authorities, which is why the DA is so grateful for the FBI’s involvement that by the end of the night, he’s pumping the agent’s hand. (Why is the DA shaking his left hand, though, instead of his right hand, which the long, cool woman is holding? Is this, perhaps, some sort of secret Masonic ritual? The question is left as an exercise for the reader. Please show your work.)
To me, the biggest question is about the long, cool woman’s pair of 45s. This is clearly a double entendre. In fact, it’s blatant enough to be a single entendre. And yet even a small child knows that with bra measurements, numbers are used for band sizes, not cup sizes; cup sizes are letters.
(Pursuing this line further, have some sympathy for the long, cool woman. If she’s 5’9″ and skinny but has a 45-inch bust, she’s going to have back problems. Maybe she’s in the bootlegging boozer to get some alcohol to ease her pain.)
Anyway, I hope that clears up any confusion. None of this should be construed as legal advice. If you find yourself in a bootlegging boozer with a nest of bad men this Saturday night, please consult an attorney, not a 52-year-old rock song or a weekend disc jockey who isn’t much younger.
Join us next week, when we discuss the fact that a small-town girl “born and raised in South Detroit” would actually be from Windsor, Ont., and how if Daddy was a cop “on the east side of Chicago” the night Chicago died, he was patrolling Lake Michigan.
P.S. Here’s the real story behind the song. It’s about the Prohibition era and was deliberately written as a pastiche of Jerry Reed, Creedence Clearwater Revival and other swamp-rock acts.