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merle kilgore - pinball machine lyrics

[sung intro]
i’m an old hog+hauler, i drove my big truck
i shot the pinball machine, but it caused me bad luck

[spoken intro]
this here’s a story about an ex+truck driver, being named john james wall, before his friends blackballed him and nicknamed him pinball

i gathered this story from a truck stop in gallipolis, ohio, when this old feller––i’d reckon about 70 year old––asked me to buy him a strong cup of coffee and a piece of good ol’ apple pie

i’m glad i did, because he winked his eye and said “mm, my my”

then i noticed in a few minutes, with tremblin’ hands, he pushed a part of his pie and coffee back, and he looked at me with tears runnin’ down his poor ol’ weather+beaten cheeks

and this is what he said

[verse]
i put all i ever made in the pinball machine
i’d get four catty+corners, and i’d miss the 16
i wish they would outlaw the pinball machine
many weeks they have caused me to live on sardines

[verse]
the last time i called my wife on the phone
the first thing she said, “john, when can you come home?”
“i got a load of hogs, honey, they’ve got to go
i’ll see you when i get back from old chicago”
she said, “john, i love you, wish you wouldn’t go
send your babies some money, they’re hungry and cold”
[verse]
i made my trip on to chicago
i was gone two months, ’cause i shot up my dough
and when i got home, lord, my family was gone
the best friend i had rung my telephone
he said, “john, i guess you’re wondering about your babies and wife
pneumonia got your babies, your wife took her life”
i lost all my friends, can’t sleep for bad dreams
dream about an old truck and a pinball machine

[verse]
i never will forget the last words that old man said
“oh lord, if i could live my life over,” then he fell dead
they tell me john was a clean+cut young man at the age of 19
now he’s a victim of a big ol’ truck, and a pinball machine

- merle kilgore lyrics

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