Plastic Jesus Again - The Monday Morning Memo

In the scene from Cool Hand Luke, [Below] Luke just found out that his mother died, so the tone of his performance is tender, soulful, sad—completely unlike the obnoxious and irreverent premiere performance in 1962, which was intended as a parody. Singer-songwriters Ed Rush and George Cromarty wrote the song in reaction to a Christian radio station in Del Rio, Texas. They recorded “Plastic Jesus” as part of a fake Christian radio broadcast, under the fake band name “The Goldcoast Singers” [also Below.] Ernie Marrs adapted the lyrics and tune in 1965. The song was adapted even further for Cool Hand Luke, and has since been covered by a few dozen artists, the most famous of which is probably Billy Idol. – Victoria Emily Jones

“When was it that first I heard of the grass harp? Long before the autumn we lived in the China tree; an earlier autumn then; and of course it was Dolly who told me, no one else would have known to call it that, a grass harp.

Below the hill grows a field of high Indian grass that changes color with the seasons: go to see it in the fall, scarlet shadows like firelight breeze over it and the autumn winds strum on its dry leaves sighing human music, a harp of voices.

Do you hear? That is the grass harp, always telling a story — it knows the stories of all the people on the hill, of all the people who ever lived, and when we are dead it will tell ours, too.”

- Truman Capote

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