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