Cabinet Man

Cabinet Man is the third track on Spirit Phone.

In the album's commentary track, Neil explains inspirations for the song:

"This is supposed to be the kind of ludicrous story that would show up in an old horror anthology, like Creepshow, with lots of creative gore and vivid lights." " There is the urban legend of Polybius, a weird 80s arcade game that made people sick, and lose their minds, and die- but, the body horror element where a guy somehow medically transplants all his systems into a video game cabinet… not sure what I was doing when I came up with that one."

The song is the third most popular Lemon Demon song on Spotify, where it currently has 70,000,000+ streams.

Lyrics

The day they found me, I hadn't yet been played
Inside my workshop behind the old arcade
Electric desires had unraveled all my wires
Now I'm in a box for safekeeping
The news reporters reported that I died
But all my organs were living on inside
Circuit board to brain with two lungs collecting change
One big human heart gently beeping

You can't win me, I can't be beat
I won't hurt you unless you cheat
You can't see me behind the screen
I'm half human and half machine

Thank God for business, they let me take the floor
I stood so proudly, like I was going to war
Players soon appeared and I quickly was revered
This must be what love would have felt like
Such dedication, they came from miles away
With eyes so piercing, they'd wait their turn to play
Perfect patient lines, because I was in their minds
I could do whatever I felt like (Whatever I felt like)

You can't win me, I can't be beat
I won't hurt you unless you cheat
You can't see me behind the screen
I'm half human and half machine

I'm happy for years and years and
Only eating the occasional maintenance man
Only driving a few kids to madness
Maybe they were predisposed to madness, who knows?
I only want to have fun
But now they're telling me my days here are done
Cause there's a tiny little box that they make in Japan
And pretty soon it's gonna fit in your hand

It's getting lonely, it's getting hard to breathe
The arcade's empty, I think it's Christmas Eve
Someone's broken in, now they're painting on my skin
Breaking me and taking my quarters
Bashing in my face with a crowbar
Kicking me and pushing me over
Now they see my blood on their sneakers

You can't win me, I can't be beat
I won't hurt you unless you cheat
You can't see me behind the screen
I'm half human and half machine

Trivia

• There is a demo version of this song from 2009 included as a bonus track in the Needlejuice Release.