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Jesus On The Dashboard

Lauren

Below, when I posted on the dashboard Jesus I absolutelymusthave, Julia asked,

Wasn’t there a song a few years ago where the Jesus on the dashboard was really a flask?

I don’t know whether or not it was a flask, but that would make a lot of sense. One of my favorite guilty pleasure bands is a metal outfit that bridges the span between jam rock, metal, hard rock, and stoner rock, all the while managing to at least seem a bit intelligent and intertextual in their lyrics and riffs. And yes, they’re just a tiny bit catchy. And a tiny bit X-Files.

Clutch‘s song, Spacegrass, indeed has a lyric that very plainly says “Jesus on the dashboard,” in a song about being drunk and high on a country drive that feels vaguely spiritual. But you can’t stop at that lame description. Listen for yourself.

These three songs should be listened to in order. Keep in mind this CD came out in 1995.

Clutch – Rock n’ Roll Outlaw
Clutch – Escape From the Prison Planet
Clutch – Spacegrass

UPDATE It appears Julia was looking for a different song, but since I went ahead and posted on blasphemous Jesus songs, I figure I’ll offer a few more.

Jello Biafra and Mojo Nixon – Plastic Jesus
Mojo Nixon and Skid Roper – Jesus at McDonald’s at Midnight
Drive-By Truckers – Too Much Sex (Too Little Jesus)
Tom Waits – Chocolate Jesus
Depeche Mode – Personal Jesus (acoustic)
Jack Johnson and Mason Jennings – Plastic Jesus (Nothing’s Sacred Anymore)

The first two songs on the update list may be improperly labeled — somebody let me know.

24 thoughts on Jesus On The Dashboard

  4. “Entering Jesus from the Rear,” Feederz (I think . . .)

    Easily the most blasphemous Jesus song.

  5. Could god worship be a dangerous, life-threatening illness? A study just out last month strongly suggests that this is indeed the case. Maybe it’s time we begin prosecuting those who spread it (i.e., god worship).

    (See http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-1798944,00.html
    and ttp://moses.creighton.edu/JRS/pdf/2005-11.pdf)

    On the other hand, maybe we’d better beef up the UN first, and pass international laws against god. It may be that only Christian and Jewish gods are good at keeping Islam gods at bay, and if that’s the case, it’d be safer for all of us to give all the gods the boot at the same time.

  6. My mom always sang “Plastic Jesus” around the house with these lyrics:

    I don’t care if things get scary
    I’ve got the Virgin Mary
    Sitting on the dashboard of my car

    That cracks me up for some reason.

  8. Back in the Ozarks we sang “I don’t care if it rains or freezes, long as I got my plastic Jesus, riding on the dashboard of my car” long after hearing it in Cool Hand Luke. Seems to me that the local Baptists sang it the most. (I think the Virgin Mary stanza was the second verse).

  9. Thank you! I love blasphemy! I guess that stems from an 8 year catholic school education.

    I’ve never heard “Entering Jesus from the Rear”, but I think I can imagine what it is about.

  10. Easily the most blasphemous Jesus song.

    A challenge!

    Jesus loves the little children
    All the children of the world.
    Red and yellow, black and white
    They fill his belly every night.
    Jesus loves the little children of the world.

  11. Oh — the song is very nasty, on 6000 different levels. And I got the name a bit wrong, it’s “Jesus Entering from the Rear.”

    Jesus

    We nailed you to a cross, but you’re still a fucking pain
    Dead 2000 years, still can’t get it through your brain
    You’re just a worthless corpse, you’re just a pile of shit
    Give me a couple of nails, and I’ll ventilate your pit

    Jesus entering from the rear
    Fucking you in the ass
    Just another faggot
    In just another mass

    We won’t take it any more, we just won’t take that trash
    You’re another stupid martyr with another rectal rash
    We won’t take you in the butt, we’re just waiting for the when
    We’ve got a lot of nails to do it to you again

    You thought it would be cute, you thought it would be fun
    But wait ’til I split your shitter with a soldering gun
    Jesus on a plate, Jesus a la carte
    Jesus under glass, just another fucking tart

  13. Oh, I know. The song is deeply vile. I have it on vinyl. The record has a sandpaper cover so that it will destroy your other records as you take them out and put them back in.

  14. Well, I think you guys have beat the only blaspemous Jesus song I remember (“Lead Us Not To Temptation” – starts out like a normal hymn and degenerates very badly after the line “Trust only in Jesus, He will satisfy you”).

    I enjoy the mockery of Christian kitsch in “plastic Jesus” (at least in the version that I know), but “Jesus Entering from the Rear” sounds nastier than I would care to own.

  15. I side with Amanda, loving the thousands of variants of dashboard jesus.

    I will beat you with a pool cue
    if you dis plastic Cthulhu
    he’s ridin’ on the dashboard of my car

    I actually DO have a little plastic Cthulhu on my dash. because it’s funny to me

  16. If you’re going for Jesus songs, don’t forget the Flaming Lips. From “Jesus Shooting Heroin” to “Thank you Jack White for the Fiber Optic Jesus That you Gave Me” (and not a few others in between…Wayne Coyne has a thing for Jesus. And Santa. )

  18. In reference to Amanda above:

    I don’t care if it rains or freezes
    As long as I got my plastic Jesus
    Riding on the dashboard of my car

  23. wow. and they actually put thought into it. I penned mine 43 seconds after coming up with the concept of a “dashboard Cthulhu”

    and my friends, not knowing the song, didn’t get the joke. cultural illiterates, they are. So unhip, that when you say Dylan, they think you’re talking about Dylan Thomas, whoever he was.

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