While searching through old Sing Out! Magazines for another article, I came across this gem.

THE FOLK PROCESS
"Plastic Jesus" Investigated
by Ernie Marrs

Sing Out! Magazine, Vol 14, no. 5, November 1964, pp. 51-53

On the cover of the February, 1964, Issue of Broadside magazine (New York’s Broadside, the original one) appeared a song that aroused a storm of controversy which still rages—- and the commercial recording of this song is still selling well. It’s “The Times They Are A-Changing,” by Bob Dylan.

On one of the inside pages of this issue, there appeared another song which has caused just as much comment, “Plastic Jesus,” reprinted in SING OUT!, April-May, 1964.

Let me state here and now that the version which bears my name should be retitled to avoid confusion and called “Plastic Jesus Rides Again.” It’s only one of a large family of songs on this Subject.

My own initial contact with this Topic occurred in January, 1963. A young lady who was then singing with a close friend of mine, Patrick Sky, sang a one-verse version she had heard sung by another friend, Jeff Espina, who heard it sung by someone in some other town. The tune was slightly different from the one that appeared in print, but the printed version is usable. (The young lady’s verse is the first one of the song credited to me.)

I felt that the song needed more verses, and added three — the second, fourth, and fifth. A copy of these verses went to Pat, who was bound for Miami, Florida. He tested the song on audiences there, and it became his most-requested number. He needed more verses, though.
Meanwhile, back in Atlanta, I organized a quartet, with the intention of recording an LP of this sort of material, lampooning several sorts of hypocrisy. We settled down to serious practice sessions, and the man at the tape recorder, Richard Ainsworth, came up with the third verse. The record would have come out last year, except for two things:
First, the man who was to back the pressing got editorial ideas and wanted enough material for two or three records to pick over and edit as he saw fit. We balked, feeling that this would totally destroy the effect we were aiming for. To us, artistically, even the sequence of the songs on the record was important, as in any really good concert.
Secondly, my choir boy-voiced Scruggs—picker got drafted into the Army. (You could say that Uncle Sam subverted us.)

By some strange coincidence, we weren’t the only ones who were thinking of recording this song. Pete Seeger wrote me a card, mailed July 15, 1963: “Ernie: What do you know about the song, ‘Plastic Jesus’? Who wrote it? Some teenagers here think it was originally a Georgia radio commercial, with new teenager verses. Is this correct?”

I sent him what information I had, a tape of our group singing the song, and a typed copy of the verses. (An interesting sidelight: this typed copy was a duplicate of the sheet our group was working from. Unison lines were in upper case letters, solo lines in lower case, and this is the reason for the way it appeared in Broadside.) The tune we used was a Bill Monroe-ish thing with a lot of get-up-and—go to it.

It turned out that Pete had heard and learned a different version of “Plastic Jesus,” and had taped it for inclusion on the second Broadside LP (Broadside BR 302, distributed by Folkways). Due to the confusion about versions, authorship, possible copyrights, etc., it was decided to drop the song from the recording.

After Broadside #39 came out, we finally started getting definite answers, and almost pinned down the source of the song: Ed Rush and George Cromarty, the Goldcoast Singers. They began singing it in January, 1962,at the Purple Onion in San Francisco; in April, they recorded it (Here They Are, The Goldcoast Singers. World-Pacific 1806). Ed has something interesting things to say regarding this in Broadside #41, but the significant thing is this: “After getting the words, rather awkwardly phrased, from a Cal coed of our acquaintance...” Here we go again, folks! Who cares? It’s a folk song.

Several variants of the song exist, and more verses keep cropping up all the time. Whenever some listener with little perception of its satire takes me to task for singing it, calling it a terrible song and a sacrilegious outrage, I usually do one of three things:

• Ignore the complaint.
• Sing a few bawdy verses.
• Or refer them to Exodus 20: 4-5.

Future scholars of folk song, following in the Lomax footsteps, may perhaps trace regional singing habits in the verse structure and other characteristics of the several members of ”Plastic Jesus” family, the youngest of which (to my knowledge) is one I wrote on June 6, 1964:
“Plastic Jesus for President”

Scranton’s scratched and Rocky’s rocked;
Nixon finds his chances blocked in the auto-sticker war, I see.
Some cars on the highway carry Signs that tell us, “Bury Barry”;
others have the Candidate for me.

Plastic Jesus, Plastic Jesus,
Riding on the dashboard of my car!
Johnson’s speedy, but Our Master
Often travels even faster,
Going by just like a shooting star.

Dewey’s done, he’s out of the polling,
Romney hasn’t started rolling;
Lodge got lodged, and he’s an also—ran.
It looks like R.F.K. will wait
So here’s another Candidate,
The One with The Answers and The Plan:

Plastic Jesus, Plastic Jesus,
Riding on the dashboard of my car!
If you’re poor or rich as Croesus,
Be sure to vote for Plastic Jesus
To straighten out the mess we’re in, so far.

(Frankly, I have a great deal of respect for The Carpenter who tried to help the people of His day in a sort of primitive socialistic manner. He didn’t invent earthquakes, floods, flies, volcanic eruptions, blindness, idiocy, or diseases such as Huntington’s Chorea.
I find fragments of Him in many people today from time to time, and these people are not peddling plastic Jesi. Incidentally, I was presented with one of the latter, made in Italy.)

Woe unto you, $cribe$ and Phari$ee$ and hypocrite$! The fourth fourth of my four is getting discharged from military service in about a week. Barring accidents, we will dig out those old tapes and pick up where we left off. It is quite possible that no one will want to release a recording of our material as edited by ourselves, but that doesn’t prevent us from singing.

On behalf of all the authors of all the versions and variations, from those who wrote many verses to those who only contributed two important lines, thanks. And thanks to those who have conmmented on the song, whether in condemnation or commendation, for both have added to its stature. “Plastic Jesus” is here to stay.