Manic Mechanic by ZZ Top

Album: Degüello (1979)

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Songfacts®:

In a 1985 interview with Spin magazine, ZZ Top bass player Dusty Hill explained the inspiration for this song: "We have a good friend who's a mechanic, and he's just wild. A long time ago, I had this old Triumph car, and it kept messing up real bad, and I asked him over to the house. We had a few beers, and I said, 'Why don't you take a look at my car.' He reached up under my dashboard, and he ripped out a handful of wires and he said, 'First of all, you don't need this.' I don't know anything about cars, but I figured they wouldn't be in there if they weren't necessary. I said, 'God, man!' But he fixed it. He was the manic mechanic. A lot of mechanics get a little manic behind it. People get manic dealing with mechanics, too."
Billy Gibbons is big on cars (he bought the 1933 Ford that appears in many of their videos and on the Eliminator album cover). The sound on the introduction to this song is a 1964 Dodge Dart that belonged to Gibbons' father.

Comments: 7

Mark Turner from RaleighBilly says "'Vette" (i.e. Corvette) here since he's already said "bet" in the first line. Listening multiple times seems to confirm this.
Race Addict from 1320 FeetRemember Billy is using a distortion box on his vocals. I think he’s using the more common term of “Moon Tune”. A Moon Tune is one that will lift the nose of the car on the starting line as it has plenty of torque.
Sad To Know This... But Even Sadder That It Exists At All. from The Pastcoon tune and nig.. rigged were terms I heard at the garage when growing up in Jersey. Being a foreigner and unfamiliar with American slang, I didn't know how racist those terms were. I took it to mean, that when you were poor, you had to find ways to get your ride to go or fix things which cost no $$. I'm hoping that we can figure out real fast that what religion, skin color, geographical location fate happened to born you into, we have a lot more in common than not. Division only serves those who are looking to divide and rule. Keeping all the divisions fighting among them selves, the dividers make off with the loot so to speak. The "dividers" want to be your masters. When you belive the crap they use to divide the public, you serve those masters.
Phillip from The Rocket CityBet. He's saying he won the bet because he put the "coon tune" on his car.
Ratchet from Da BurghA coon tune is a tune up without new parts. Clean the plugs, set the dwell and timing, adjust the carb. Usually to make the car a little hotter or faster for a race, after it needs detuned so it's more drivable around town. Don't know if the term is racist or not but black folks back in the day generally didn't have alot of bread. I can't believe with all the comments and questions about this lyric nobody got it right, thought this was common knowledge amongst all older gearheads/motorheads.
A G from Louisville Did Joe Wayne Hardy play bass on Manic Mechanic?
Jon Livingston from Michigan What exactly is the meaning of . "I done put the coon tune on this bet" ? And is it actually bet or vette ?

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