PINBALL MACHINE [top of page]

I'm an old road-hog
I drove a big truck
Shot the pinball machine, but it brought me bad luck.
If oceans was whiskey and I was a dove
I'd dive into it and never come up.
I wish they'd outlaw them old pinball machines
Many weeks they have caused me to live on sardines.

Last time I called my wife on the phone,
The first thing she said was "John, can you come home?
I got a lot of lodgers and they've got to go."
I said "I'll see you when I get back from the depot."

She said "John, you know I love you, I wish you wouldn't go
Send your babies some money. They're hungry and cold."
The last thing she said, and then she hung up, was
"John you gave up my loving to drive an old truck."

I made my trip up to the depot
I was gone two months cause I shot up my dough
When I got home my family was gone
The best friend I had rung my telephone.
He said "John, I guess you wonder 'bout your babies and wife...
Pneumonia got your babies and your wife took her life."
I've lost all my friends, can't sleep for bad dreams
I dream about a old truck and a pinball machine.

I never will forget the last words that old man said:
"Oh Lord, if I could live my life over,"
And then he fell dead, the victim of an old truck.

He was a clean-cut young man at the age of nineteen,
But now he's in his grave,
The victim of an old truck
And a pinball machine.