Jesus Hates Me

For today’s post I am indebted to Tyler Hewitt, who first brought this to the attention of WFMU back in December 2003. I do not currently posess a copy of this particular outrage, but if anyone has one for sale do get in touch!

Now, I know I'm going over old ground yet again, but it's alarming that in this day and age the world is still stuffed to the rafters with religious nutcases: still, if it were not for crazy-assed Christian zealots we would have been spared a wealth of terrible music – from tearful pastors and their overly made-up wives eliciting your hard earned savings from you through the power of song to the diabolical Kid’s Praise, Little Marcy, Charlie the Hamster and Lil' Markie, each of whom have featured in these pages before.

All of these, however ridiculous or downright creepy, pale into insignificance when compared with Baby Lu-Lu, a deceased (one would have to assume) three and-a-half year-old who ‘performs’ via the mediumship of Betty Lou Turney  - a grown woman who talks and sings in a little girl voice and calls her husband Daddy (ick!)

On the sleeve notes to Baby Lu-Lu’s one and only album (at least I hope there’s only one) Betty Lou writes: ‘The Voice of Baby LuLu is a gift of God, given to me after JW and I had been in Evangelism about 6 months. I do not know how I do Baby LuLu, only God knows’. You got that right, Betty Lou. JW (Daddy), or Jay W Turney to give him his full name, previously sang with gospel group the Jubilee Quartet, and he and Betty Lou had released an album of their own, I Love Him So, back in 1965. 

But back to Baby Lu-Lu. There’s no explanation anywhere why the deceased is referred to as Lu-Lu on the front cover and LuLu on the reverse. Or, for that matter, why the album is credited to Lu-Lu (or LuLu) but features a full colour photo of Betty Lou on the front, crouching beneath a tree with a big red bow on top of her back-combed, bleach-blonde hairdo. The scary Betty Lu-Lu’s kabuki mask grin seems menacing at best, and the two costumed poodles clutched to her sides look distinctly uncomfortable. Maybe once the cover shoot was done Betty Lu-Lu was going to swallow them, a la the old woman who swallowed a fly, in the vain hope that they might be able to fetch Baby Lu-Lu out from the depths of her gullet. 

This preposterous album contains a few school assembly songs such as This Little Light of Mine and I’ve Got that Joy, Joy, Joy and today's selection, Jesus Loves Me (all pointedly sung off key), is fleshed out with Baby Lu-Lu’s attempts to read a couple of well-known bible stories. I hate to be crass, but it’s fecking horrible! I’m at a loss to work out who this rubbish could have been pitched at; the under-fives wouldn’t have the patience to sit through it, the pre-teens would be too sophisticated for it and post teens would just laugh at it. You’d have to assume that JW and Betty Lou put this together with the adult simpleton market in mind.


For those who care about these things, Betty Lou (or Bettilu, as she appears in the list of officers for Jay W Turney Ministries) is still extant, although she’s now seen off at least two spouses: JW (or 'Daddy') passed away in 2000 and her second husband, E Marlow, met his maker in March 2012.

Enjoy!