My plastic Jesus

I don’t care if it rains or freezes
Long as I have my plastic Jesus
Riding on the dashboard of my car
Through my trials and tribulations
And my travels through the nations
With my plastic Jesus I’ll go far

Plastic Jesus, plastic Jesus
Riding on the dashboard of my car
I’m afraid he’ll have to go
His magnets ruin my radio
And if I have a wreck He’ll leave a scar

Riding down a 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 eye on me
And any other thing that lies behind

Plastic Jesus, Plastic Jesus
Riding on the dashboard of my car
Though the sunshine on His back
Make 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 the 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

Plastic Jesus, Plastic Jesus
Riding on the dashboard of my car
His halo fits just right
And I use it for 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

Plastic Jesus, Plastic Jesus
Riding on the dashboard of my car
Once His robe was snowy white
Now it isn’t quite bright
Stained by the smoke of my cigar

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

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.

[“Plastic Jesus”, circa 1969, sign-on song of disk jockey Don Imis
Attributed to Ed Rush and George Cromarty, members of the Goldcoast
Singers, who adapted it from older Black camp-meeting song.
http://www.folkways.si.edu/broadside/htdocs/Marrs.htm]