I played (and heard) this song for the first time at Monday Ukearist this week. It turns out it’s been covered by all sorts of people; The Flaming Lips, Billy Idol, Jack Johnson and The Levellers to name a few. Paul Newman famously plays Plastic Jesus on the banjo in the film Cool Hand Luke (which I have never seen – I think I should fix that). 

 It’s one of those folk songs that has hundreds of alternative verses (I added one of them at the end) but I think this is basically the original version. It’s the first song I’ve actually managed to play without having to look at the chords too, so that’s a bit of an achievement.

I hope you like – as usual, if you do then please do go and rate it on YouTube. Thanks dudes!