At The Old Majestic Nickel Matinee

Josephine, do you ever feel like running away?
On a daily basis
That's why I sneak off to the movies
So that's where you go every time we hit a new town
Don't you get blue, sittin' all alone in the dark?

I'm never alone when I'm watching movies, Josephine
I meet the most interesting characters up on that silver screen
Ever since I was ten, it only cost a nickel to change my world

In a small town in Georgia, you really had to search
For something entertaining to see
So the best show in town was every Sunday down in church
Surrounded by good people who looked like me

Oh, but then one day a Picture Palace opened
For a nickel you could dream there, day and night
But those who looked like me
Could only use the balcony
Like the movies, life could be that black and white

But up there, on the screen
There was romance
And the make-believe would carry me away
Because no one I'd ever seen
Were like the stars up on the screen
At the Old Majestic Nickel Matinee

In those movies I saw things looked different
Someone else's world was up there on display
For not one vamp or wall-street wife held up
A mirror to my life!
At the Old Majestic Nickel Matinee

So, I would pretend that it was me up there
But, with Mary Pickford playing my maid
That I was a star, living life without a care
Who never was alone or felt afraid

We can never sit with those who sat below us
Kept out aside, but heck, it caused me no dismay
Besides, I wasn't thinking novel
I would rather be above 'em
At the Old Majestic Nickel Matinee

You're already a star in my book
All you need is the camera
What's stopping you from just going out there and doing it?

Only the world, Josephine

A handful of nickels was all I ever had
But I believed that something had to change
So up there on the screen, I decided
That a young girl just like me would look one day
And draped in diamonds and fur
She would see someone just like her
And her hopes and dreams would never have to stay
At the Old Majestic Nickel Matinee