raskar42 #1 Posted August 3, 2011 (edited) i was listening to the Tom Waits song - "Phantom 309" when the lyric came up - "he pushed her ahead with 10 forward gears, man that dashboard was lit like the old Madam La Rue pinball" i was curious and goggled "madam larue pinball". there were a few references to it, usually as a metaphor for something being lit up, but i found no record of any such machine. Is this just an invention by tom waits, or was he referring to a real machine? Edited August 3, 2011 by raskar42 Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
+save2600 #2 Posted August 3, 2011 I think it's just Tom Waits being his normal goofy self or referencing some generic cool-looking deco piece he saw or used to play somewhere. Not aware of any Madam LaRue pinball machine, that's for sure. There's a Madam Butterfly Bingo pintable and Madam Anna Sage is depicted on Bally's Old Chicago backglass, but no LaRue AFAIK. Googling her, doesn't even seem as if she was a real person of historical importance anyway. When it comes to Madam's though, first person I thought of was Dominique LaRue from Harlem Nights. Jasmine Guy was a hottie back in the day! Great flick if you've never seen it... http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0097481/ Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
SEgamer #3 Posted August 3, 2011 I heard this song last week and was wondering the same thing. From the Balboa Theater wiki page there was a "colorful, hard-drinking, hard-swearing character Madame La Rue" that was there. Maybe Tom used the name to describe the pinball as being colorful and tough? Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
raskar42 #4 Posted August 3, 2011 i tend to agree that's it's a fictional pinball machine - but i found this in someone's blog: ....some older guy, meaning over sixteen and allowed to play the pinball machines..is on a roll at one of the machines, Madame LaRue’s from the look of it. That’s the one with the full-busted, vivacious women looking back from the point total/games remaining total area .. maybe it's just an example of bad prose and a reference to the tom waits song, but there were a few older pinball with deceptions of alluring women on them, it makes me curious. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
+save2600 #5 Posted August 3, 2011 Perhaps Madame LaRue is an obscure music industry-insider joke describing Elton John? 2 Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
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