The Coin Machine

(album: Red Hot Picker - 1975)

Now I'm not one to get all excited
I'm seldom tense and I'm never uptight
But there's one thing in this world that really makes me upset
Now that's them coin machines them nickel and dimers
Them out of order and them work one-timers
Those nickel an dime quarter grubbing monsters
I mean how many times have you had the munchies
So you whip out a dime for some peanut crunchies
You put it in the slot and you pull the handle and then just nothing
So you cuss and you beat it till your hand is blue
And you push and shove and kick it with your shoe
And finally just walk away while it's blinking thank you
Which is machine talk for we just stuck it to you SON

I'd like to meet the man who invented the coin machine
He must have hated mankind and every other living thing
I'll bet he had a motto on his wall in prose and rhyme
Saying you get nothing for a nickel twice as much for a dime

Well they'll offer you cigarettes soft drinks cigars
Barbecue potato chips and all kinda candy bars
Peanuts popcorn cracker jacks and red hots
And you can pay a quarter for a nickel comb
Get a throw away razor and a shot of cologne
Get a bad shoeshine that even polishes your socks
But I think the worst of those you see with the glass
Where you can see what you want but you can bet
Your donkey there ain't no way short of a blow torch
You gonna get nothing outta there
Then how 'bout those on the men's room wall
Boys you know what I mean you have seen 'em all
When you lose six bits in one of them boogers
You're just too embarrassed to complain
So you just kinda go home by yourself

I'd like to meet the man who invented the coin machine...

Now I heard this story about a fella one time
Who certainly is a hero of mine
He ranks right up there with John Wayne, Burt Reynolds and Merle Haggard
Seems there was this certain soft drink machine
It was rusty and old cantankerous and mean
And it took him for one too many quarters and his mind snapped
So he went out to his his car and looked up under the seat
And he whipped out a .45 clean and neat
He walked up to that machine and said hand it over son it's your last chance
Then he plugged that thing about three or four times
Right up under that blinking have a Coke sign
Then it just coughed and spit up four hundred dollars worth of quarters and died
The judge called it self defense

I'd like to meet the man who invented the coin machine...