"Plastic Jesus" - Cool Hand Luke

Everyone remembers the scene from Cool Hand Luke when Luke comforts himself on his mother’s old banjo after she has passed away. The story behind the song is kind of interesting, so I thought I’d share it with you.

The song is not as old as most people would think. In the film it is portrayed as an old gospel tune, but in reality it was only about 4 years old at the time. It was written as a joke to parody gospel music and came in many variations. The original credit for the song, as far as I can ascertain, is due to a man  named Ernie Marrs, who was born in 1932,  passing away in 1998.

Marrs wrote the song for the magazine “Sing Out” in 1964, and from there it took on a life of its own. But when Luke sang his version in the film “Cool Hand Luke”, the song was taken to be an old gospel tune. From such bits of misinformation, legends are born. Other sources credit Ed Rush and George Cromarty with the initial concept of the parody.

Since it is Sunday, I thought I’d run a bit of pseudo-gospel along with the back story and a whole bunch of the various lyrics which have cropped up over the decades since the song was first conceived. 

Some of the verses were undoubtedly written after consuming a bit of “white lightning” and I bear no responsibility for their content. I imagine that most of these were lyrics sung at the bar with the guys on Saturday night, while the wife was home getting ready for church in the morning.

Plastic Jesus (Variable lyrics)

Well, I don't care if it rains or freezes,

Long as I have my plastic Jesus

Riding on the dashboard of my car

Through all trials and tribulations,

We will travel every nation,

With my plastic Jesus I'll go far.

CHORUS

Plastic Jesus, plastic Jesus

Riding on the dashboard of my car

Through my trials and tribulations,

And my travels thru the nations,

With my plastic Jesus I'll go far.

I don't care if it rains or freezes

As long as I've got my Plastic Jesus

Glued to the dashboard of my car,

You can buy Him phosphorescent

Glows in the dark, He's Pink and Pleasant,

Take Him with you when you're travelling far

I don't care if it's dark or scary

Long as I have magnetic Mary

Ridin' on the dashboard of my car

I feel I'm protected amply

I've got the whole damn Holy Family

Riding on the dashboard of my car

You can buy a Sweet Madonna

Dressed in rhinestones sitting on a

Pedestal of abalone shell

Goin' ninety, I'm not wary

'Cause I've got my Virgin Mary

Guaranteeing I won't go to Hell

I don't care if it bumps or jostles

Long as I got the Twelve Apostles

Bolted to the dashboard of my car

Don't I have a pious mess

Such a crowd of holiness

Strung across the dashboard of my car

ALT CHORUS

No, I don't care if it rains or freezes

Long as I have my plastic Jesus

Riding on the dashboard of my car

But I think he'll have to go

His magnet ruins my radio

And if we have a wreck he'll leave a scar

Riding through the thoroughfare

With his nose up in the air

A wreck may be ahead, but he don't mind

Trouble coming, he don't see

He just keeps his eyes on me

And any other thing that lies behind

ALT CHORUS

Plastic Jesus, Plastic Jesus

Riding on the dashboard of my car

Though the sun shines on his back

Makes him peel, chip, and crack

A little patching keeps him up to par

When pedestrians try to cross

I let them know who's boss

I never blow my horn or give them warning

I ride all over town

Trying to run them down

And it's seldom that they live to see the morning

 ALT CHORUS

Plastic Jesus, Plastic Jesus

Riding on the dashboard of my car

His halo fits just right

And I use it as a sight

And they'll scatter or they'll splatter near and far

When I'm in a traffic jam

He don't care if I say Damn

I can let all sorts of curses roll

Plastic Jesus doesn't hear

For he has a plastic ear

The man who invented plastic saved my soul

ALT CHORUS

Plastic Jesus, Plastic Jesus

Riding on the dashboard of my car

Once his robe was snowy white

Now it isn't quite so bright

Stained by the smoke of my cigar

God made Christ a Holy Jew

God made Him a Christian too

Paradoxes populate my car

Joseph beams with a feigned elan

From the shaggy dash of my furlined van

Famous cuckold in the master plan

Naughty Mary, smug and smiling

Jesus dainty and beguiling

Knee-deep in the piling of my van

His message clear by night or day

My phosphorescent plastic Gay

Simpering from the dashboard of my van

When I'm goin' fornicatin

I got my ceramic Satan

Sinnin' on the dashboard of my Winnebago Motor Home

The women know I'm on the level

Thanks to the wild-eyed stoneware devil

Ridin' on the dashboard of my Winnebago Motor Home

Sneerin' from the dashboard of my Winnebago Motor Home

Leering from the dashboard of my van

If I weave around at night

And the police think I'm tight

They'll never find my bottle, though they ask

Plastic Jesus shelters me

For His head comes off, you see

He's hollow, and I use Him for a flask

ALT CHORUS

Plastic Jesus, plastic Jesus

Riding on the dashboard of my car

Ride with me and have a dram

Of the blood of the Lamb

Plastic Jesus is a holy bar

There is nothin that is cuter

than a smilin Jolly Buddha,

Ridin on the dashboard of my car,

I don't have no idol cuter,

comes in plastic, bronze and pewter,

Take him with me when I go afar.

Jolly Buddha, fat and squattin,

on a pad of aspirin cotton,

He's with me wherever I may roam,

When it's late and I start to hurry,

I know he ain't gonna worry,

He looks at me and all he says is, "Oooommmmmmm."

There is nothing that is gaucher

Than eatin food that isn't kosher,

Right in front of my smilin Moses' face,

I'm afraid that he'll awaken

When I'm eatin ham or bacon,

And throw them Ten Commandments in my face.

I don't care if I'm broke or starvin'

As long as I've got a fish named Darwin

Glued to the trunklid of my car

God, I'm feeling so evolved

Drivin' with my problems solved

Proclaiming what I think of what we are

Riding home one foggy night,

With my honey cuddled tight,

I missed a curve and off the road we veered.

My windshield got smashed-up good,

And my darling graced the hood.

Plastic Jesus, He had disappeared.

Plastic Jesus! Plastic Jesus,

No longer chides me with His holy grin.

Doctors in the X-ray room

Found Him in my darling's womb.

Someday, He'll be born again!

I don't care if it rains or freezes

Long as I got my plastic Jesus

Riding on the dashboard of my car

He's the dude with the rusty nails,

Walks on water, don't need no sails

Riding on the dashboard of me car

I don't care if the night is scary

As long as I got the Virgin Mary

Sittin' on the dashboard of my car.

She don't slip and she don't slide

Cuz her butt is magnetized

Sittin' on the dashboard of my car.

Now I'm feeling quite contrary,

cos I got the Virgin Mary

Sitting on the dashboard of my car

There's no room for imperfection,

in my Catholic collection

Which sits upon the dashboard of my car

Jesus, Mary and St. Patrick,

now I've got the holy hat-trick

Sitting on the dashboard of my car

One more statue I've got to get

is the plastic Bernadette

Sitting on the dashboard of my car

Plastic Jesus, you've got to go,

your magnet's burst my radio

Sitting on the dashboard of my car

But I, won't lose faith and I won't lose hope

cos, now I've got a pope on a rope

Swinging from the dashboard of my car

Once as I drove to Knock,

at a petrol station I got a shock

at the special offers that they had for me

20 more points and I can barter for a Jesus with stigmata

to sit upon the dashboard of my car.

"I Am a Fugitive From the Georgia Chain Gang" by Robert E. Burns

When Robert Burns mustered out of the Army in 1919 he was elated. He had no idea what lay in store for him after having volunteered to fight for his country. If he had, he probably would've stayed in France! This is the book that spawned so many movies, including the classic "I am a Fugitive From A Chain Gang", which starred Paul Muni. The whole layout of the film "Cool Hand Luke" with Paul Newman is here, as is the story outline for "The Defiant Ones", which starred Sidney Poitier and Tony Curtis.

Wandering about with no money, and with no job prospects, Mr. Burns found himself living the life of a tramp, or hobo. When he left for the war he was making $50 a week- when he returned he could only find work for 40 cents an hour, a whopping $17.50 per week. Finding himself down and out leaves him in despair. When approached by two men with the promise of a good job, he readily accepted the offer, not knowing the true nature of the work. It turned out to be a pawn shop robbery that netted them all of $5.80, as well as changing the course of Mr. Burns life forever. He was sentenced to 6 years on the Georgia Chain gang. This was in 1922. The chain gang system in Georgia, at the time, was set up as a contract system, whereby the County Commissioners oversaw the care, housing and feeding of the prisoners. It was a system rife with corruption and misery. It would be home to Mr. Burns for a year, until he made his escape.

When Mr. Burns made his first successful escape, he wound up in Chicago. Renting a room put him in contact with a landlady who was in search of a husband. At first Mr. Burns was was able to avoid the attentions of Emily, his landlady. But then she began to open, and read, his mail. Learning the true nature of his secret, she was able to blackmail him into marriage. This was in 1925, the same year in which Mr. Burns began "The Greater Chicago Magazine." He acted as it's editor. The magazine was a success and for a time life seemed to be going well. But things have a way of changing swiftly, especially for those who are compromised in some fashion.

By 1929, he met a woman with whom he really was in love, and so he asked his wife for a divorce. Emily granted him the divorce, even as she was sending a letter to the State of Georgia, turning him in. Georgia sent 2 men to take him back, and Mr. Burns fought the extradition in court.

On May 23rd, 1929, Judge David, who presided over the Habeas Corpus hearing, refused to grant the extradition. He also delivered a scathing indictment of the Georgia penal system, stating; "Georgia- the home and birthplace of that vicious organization, the Ku Klux Klan. Where they sell the water of the Chattahoochee River at five dollars per gallon to baptize the ignorant and illiterate that they may be initiated into the wonders of the Klan, and so continue their persecution of the Jew, the Catholic, and the Negro; becoming acquainted with the fine art of lynching and midnight beatings and terrorism. It seems to me that Georgia in this case does not seek justice, but vengeance."

This was the beginning of a legal battle that would see Mr. Burns returned to the Georgia chain gang, under a false promise that he would serve only 90 days in a trustee's position. At the conclusion of that period, he was to be freed. Naively, he accepted this offer. What followed are several years of legal wrangling, during which time Mr. Burns was returned to the Chain Gang, and forced to once again make his escape.

Mr. Burns, who, incidentally was Jewish, and born in Brooklyn, wrote the book while hiding out in New Jersey during 1931. In 1932 Georgia tried once again to extradite him, and this time the State of New Jersey outright refused. This was also the year in which the book was published and released as a film. Public sentiment was clearly on Mr. Burns side. In 1945 the Governor of Georgia, Ellis Arnall, finally pardoned him.

An extraordinary look at justice in America during the years between the First World War and the end of the Jim Crow Era, this book chronicles the journey of Mr. Burns, as he attempts to navigate his way to freedom. That one man could withstand 2 decades of such uncertainty, while maintaining some sense of humanity, is simply astonishing.