Well William Francis went out one night, after kissing his wife and newborn goodbye.
He got into a Buick idling in the drive and that was the last time they saw him alive.
A witness said he came into the bar that night, just as they were turning ‘round the open sign,
With two strange men, one on either side; looking like big city muscle, twice his size.
If he came in, he never came back out and those two other fellas must’ve gone and skipped town.
His wife Tracy went looking high and low, but William Francis was as good as a ghost;
Bound for the Valley of the greater Unknown.

The Detectives asked if there was anything strange, ‘bout the way William was acting that day.
Not that she remembered or cared to describe, maybe just look he got from time to time.
With no new leads the search burned out. Sometimes a body just don’t want to be found.
Rumors swirled all over town, but they couldn’t prove nothing ‘yond a shadow of a doubt.
She heard them whisper when she walked by; saw them shaking their heads in the corner of her eye.
She wouldn’t let it shake her and she never lost hope one day William would come waltzing back home.
Back from the valley of the greater unknown.

Some folks say, he had another family, way out west, in Los Angeles
Others say, the Genovese, had him buried alive for secrets he couldn’t keep.
But she used to get a call in the middle of the night with nothing but static on the other end of the line.
And she used to sit and listen ‘till she heard the dial tone, waiting on a message
From the valley of the greater unknown.

She did her best to raise his boy up right on ten fifty an hour and some overtime.
Times were tough but they always scraped by, with a little help from his parents when money got tight.
She tried to move on over the next few years, you can’t live in the past when you’re living in arears.
She remarried a sympathetic man and I try to treat her better than William ever had.
But when we walk her boy up to the end of the drive, where we wait together for his bus to arrive,
It knocks the wind out of her when he waves goodbye. When I ask her, “honey, what’s making you cry?”
She just says, “something in that look he gets from time to time.”