Celebrity Jukebox #50: Jerry Lee Lewis

It struck me that I haven’t yet marked the passing of the last of the original rock n rollers, Jerry Lee Lewis. Chuck, Buddy, Gene, Eddie, Elvis… all the rest are long gone. Some died very young (I often find myself wondering what Buddy Holly would have done next), but only Jerry Lee got to really grow old disgracefully. A controversial figure, to be sure, but there’s no denying the power of his music. 

For songs that mention Jerry Lee by name, we need look no further than Jerry Lee himself. Here are just a few…

Jerry Lee Lewis - A Damned Good Country Song 

Well, I’ve took enough pills for big Memphis town
Ol’ Jerry Lee's drank enough whiskey to lift any ship off the ground
I’ll be the first to admit
Sure do wish these people would quit it
You know it’s tough enough
To straighten up
When these idiots won’t leave you alone
Jerry Lee Lewis’s life would make a damned good country song

Jerry Lee Lewis - Trouble In Mind 

Troubled in mind, I’m so blue
But I won’t be blue always
Cause that ol’ sun’s gonna shine
On ol' Jerry's back doorstep someday

Jerry Lee Lewis -  Rockin’ My Life Away 

I’m just rockin’ and rollin’ my life away
My name’s Jerry Lee Lewis and I’m darn sure here to stay

Jerry Lee Lewis - Better Not Look Down 

In which Jerry Lee gives advice to the Queen. Curious that they both left us within just a couple of months of each other. 

And did you know that Jerry Lee Lewis invented Jive Bunny? He might as well have…

Jerry Lee Lewis – The Return Of Jerry Lee 

Finally, and perhaps most apt…

Jerry Lee Lewis - When I Take My Vacation In Heaven

Jerry Lee is going to spend his vacation in Heaven
With loved ones gone on before Jerry Lee
It’ll be Jesus, my saviour
Forever and ever
Please spend your vacation with me

See? He’s not really gone. Just taking an extended vacation.

What about other songwriters? What do they have to say about Jerry Lee?

Let’s start with Ray…

The Kinks – One Of The Survivors

He digs Jerry Lee Lewis, Dion and The Belmonts, 
And Johnny and The Hurricanes.

In case you’re keeping score, Johnny Paris died in 2006. Dion DiMucci, on the other hand, is still with us. I guess he might be the last man standing now. (Unless we count Willie Nelson, 6 years older than Dion and still going strong.)

The late Ian Dury also placed Jerry Lee in some very fine company…

Ian Dury & The Blockheads – Dance of the Crackpots

From Rosemary Clooney to Jerry Lee Lewis
From Debussy to Thelonious Monk
It’s the modern art of the human heart
The shape of things to funk, funk, funk

And here’s a song that name-drops everyone from Creedence to Otis to Missy Elliott to Korn. Chances are this one will pop up again.

Racket County – The Truth

One more of those, Paul Heaton’s celebration of jukebox records…

Paul Heaton & Jacqui Abbott – 7” Singles

However, we must remember that Jerry Lee Lewis wasn’t exactly a paragon of virtue. For example…

Big Audio Dynamite – BAD

Jerry Lee Lewis had a child bride
Only thirteen, but he said he's justified

Indie rocker Ike Reilly writes lyrics more suited to a rap song, but though he’s been described as “rude, crude and lewd”, he also has something to say, and does so in quite a clever way.

The Ike Reilly Assassination – I Don’t Want What You Got (Goin’ On)

Chuck Berry, Cadillac, Ludacris, Cadillac
Jerry Lee Lewis with his balls on fire 
In the back of a Rocket 88
With an out-of-state plate and an underage date
Cars and girls and drinks and songs
Leave that shit in the middle of the road
What about love and what about trust?

And that’s not the only trouble Jerry Lee got into. Remember the time he shot his bass player? (It was an accident, apparently, but he still got sued.)

Reverend Horton Heat - Death Metal Guys

Jerry Lee Lewis shot his bass player down
Down to the ground
But death metal guys would have eaten his brain
And people call Jerry Lee Lewis insane!

There’s no denying Jerry Lee had a bit of a reputation… but was he really evil?

Ministry – Jesus Built My Hotrod 

"Soon I discovered that this rock thing was true
Jerry Lee Lewis was the devil
Jesus was an architect previous to his career as a prophet
All of a sudden, I found myself in love with the world
So there was only one thing that I could do
Was ding a ding dang my dang a long ling long"

Then again, you could argue that’s what made him interesting! More interesting than a lot of young rock stars these days…

The Stone Coyotes – American Child

Somebody tell me
What’s going on?
Where are the wild ones?
Where have they gone?
Give me Jerry Lee Lewis
Give me Joey Ramone

Some of these new boys
They say they want to fight
But it takes them three days
To get the drum sound right

In truth, there were far more records that mentioned Jerry Lee than I’ve got time or inclination to feature here. But here are just a few of them…

Mac Davis – Hooked On Music

Ringo Starr – I’ll Be Fine Anywhere

Apple – Doctor Rock

Johnny Hallyday – Excusez-moi de chanter encore du rock and roll

Drive-By Truckers – Demonic Possession

Eddy Mitchell – Les Filles de Jerry Lee Lewis

Kid Rock & Eminem – Fuck Off

Miranda Lambert & The B52s – Music City Queen

Van Morrison – In The Days Before Rock n Roll

But this is the song I chose to close with today. Because Frank Turner understands the spirit of rock n roll that Jerry embodied. And just like I do, Frank still believes…

And I still believe
In the saints
Yeah, in Jerry Lee and in Johnny
And all the greats

Guest Post Thursday #6: Top Ten Jesus Songs

It's that time of the week again.

Time for me to hand over the blog to one of you lot. And you'll never guess who it is this week...

Hold onto your hats, because here comes George... and he's found Jesus!


Rol put the call out for a guest posting………... and the poor sod got a response from me. So here goes with a Top Ten Jesus tracks, and it’s not ten gospel tracks, but ten tracks that have the word “Jesus” in the title. 

Speaking of Jesus, there is a famous (in Portugal and now Brazil) football coach called Jorge Jesus. He was a successful manager of Benfica, then tried to win the league with Sporting but just couldn’t do it, and is now manager of Flamengo in Brazil. He has become a legend there, winning the championship and the Copa de Libertadores, the first time Flamengo had won it since 1981. This latter feat resulted in the phrase “the pope might be Argentinian but Jesus is Portuguese”.

Time for some songs.

1. Ministry - Jesus Built Hotrod (Redline/Whiteline version)

My abiding memory of this comes from 1996, sitting in the back of a Vauxhall Cavalier, five of us in the car, no aircon, boiling hot, and we are  barrelling along a french motorway at 150km/h. I can’t remember if my legs were sticking out the sunroof or if it was Charity Chic’s hairy pins, and this song belting out the car CD player. 

First gospel track, a glorious epic praise-the-lord song, with a rawer Sam Cooke vocal than can be heard on his later, solo,  soul-pop songs. This a live performance, so it has more feeling and less polish than the studio recording (which in itself is well worth listening to, repeatedly).

2. The Soul Stirrers - Be With Me Jesus

And this is meant to be a Top Ten, so to omit this would be idiotically perverse, and that’s not my way. Oh No!

3. Johnny Cash - Personal Jesus The Depeche Mode original is not exactly a poor song but Johnny Cash’s version is fantastic. There’s a 5cd set called The Boddie Recording Company, who were based in Cleveland (Ohio not England). One of the set is a gospel collection, called Bounty: 4. The Fantastic Lightning Ares - Jesus You Are My Shining Star Every recording is slightly amateurish, raw, ramshackle, and it’s a great collection! Time for something a few might find a frustratingly repetitive stoppy-starty blast from Big Stick on Blast First records: 5. Big Stick - Jesus Was Born (on an Indian Reservation) And now a rather typical 1950s gospel song from a fine collection on Ace records called The Best Of Nashboro Gospel: 6. The Angelic Gospel SIngers - Touch Me, Lord Jesus Nick Cave could have been included twice, but I’m rejecting the track on Kicking Against The Pricks, a cover of an old gospel song, for this from Dig Lazarus Dig!!! 7. Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - Jesus of the Moon And from my favourite German record label, Trikont, and the album OVERCOME! Volume 2, Sanctified Soul And Holy Gospel is a more modern gospel song. Well, from the 1971: 8. The Rance Allen Group - Hotline to Jesus This is not exactly a lyrical masterpiece, but there’s a lovely yet despairing quality to its simplicity: 9. The Velvet Underground - Jesus Best ‘til last. The luscious introduction suggests you are in for a treat and man alive you are: Al Green’s sublime vocal, that beautiful understated brief musical interlude at 1 min 50 seconds, the call-and-response section, and of course it is so well-made and produced, you just never want it to end ; it all makes one of my favourite songs of all time. 10.  Al Green - Jesus Is Waiting As a bonus, here’s a great scene from the Jesus Christ Superstar film, but after playing it be careful of where you sing the refrain “MUST DIE, MUST DIE, this Jesus must die”. Well, I think it’s a great scene, some might think it rather preposterous, but it’s certainly worth a look:

No Billy Joel, no Huey Lewis. And I did a search to see if they had a relevant song, if only to exclude them anyway.

And thanks to Rol for hosting this piece.


No, thank you, George. I knew I could rely on you for a cracking selection of tune, but you outdid yourself there. Some belters. All with download links too - you'll make a proper music blogger of me yet (or get me arrested).

I couldn't find any Billy or Huey either, but this one leapt right out at me...

Jackie Leven - The Sexual Loneliness Of Jesus Christ

Now if you're reading this and thinking "Why didn't George include...!?!", well, you know what to do!

Rigid Digit's Booze Top Ten last week has already inspired one of you to compose your own Booze Top Ten (which will hopefully feature here soon), but if you think you've got another ten Jesus songs that could beat George's (pretty tough task, to be fair), then feel free to write me a post.

The doors to Guest Post Thursday are always open. I'm hoping George will make a return visit very soon, and we're all hoping for another one of Lynchie's showbiz stories. In the meantime... you know where I am. Let's keep this running and running...