I searched the 'net for this quote, and I'm surprised at how many people have attributed it to "
anonymous". I recognized it immediately as a line from the 1976
Tom Waits song, "
Step right up", from the "
Small Change" album. I'm not sure he's the first
person to have said it, but it seems a good bet.
The song is an indictment of advertising ploys which reflects Tom's personal anti-commercial music philosophy. In fact, he won a 2.6 million dollar lawsuit against Frito-Lay for using an imitation (including a singer who did a fair impression of Tom's raspy singing style) of this very song in one of their television commercials.