The Ballad of Lou Jean Poplin
A poem based on the 1974 Steven Spielberg film 'The Sugarland Express,' as opposed to the real-life story that served as its inspiration.
Back when I was in college, I was asked to write a ballad. In keeping with tradition, I was advised to use as its subject an outlaw or incident that could be embellished upon and mythologised. I chose a story that had already been heavily romanticised by Hollywood: the true-life tale of Robert and Ila Faye Dent, a young married couple who kidnapped Kenneth Crone, a 27-year-old Texas Highway Patrolman who pursued them into a house after they fled a traffic violation in Port Arthur. Chased by police for six hours across 200 miles, the three drove across state towards Wheelock, where Ila Faye’s children from a previous marriage (a two-year-old son and one-year-old daughter) were staying with their grandmother. Wanting to see their kids (in Robert’s case, step-kids), the Dents evaded police before Robert was fatally gunned down on the steps of his mother-in-law’s home. Ila Faye surrendered and was sentenced to a five-year prison sentence. This climactic and tragic end to the story made it to the screen, but along the way certain liberties were taken. For example, Ila Faye was on parole for fraud when she and Robert were stopped by the patrolman, causing Robert to panic and kick-start the pursuit. They didn’t have a plan and everything that happened did so because of circumstance. However, in the film, Ila Faye (renamed Lou Jean Poplin) breaks Robert (or Clovis Poplin) out of prison in a last-ditch attempt to see their infant son. The chase lasts for a couple of days, attracting media attention and quickly turning the Poplins into folk heroes, being as they are victims of economic collapse who only want to be parents to their boy.
The Sugarland Express is a fairly average film, the kind of ten-a-penny road movie that proved popular in the 1970s in the wake of 1969’s Easy Rider. But what it does have is Goldie Hawn as Lou Jean Poplin. Pretty without being classically beautiful while balancing glamour with a girl-next-door earthiness, she invites sympathy from the first frame, making pursuing officer Captain Tanner’s (Ben Johnson) concern for both her and her husband (William Atherton) all the more relatable. The Poplins, like the Dents, aren’t bad people. They just find themselves in a bad situation due to a naive belief that their actions will be forgiven once everyone realises how good they are; Crone’s statement confirmed their good intentions while the running commentary Lou Jean gives over the police radio did actually happen in the case of Ila Faye, allowing listeners and viewers to take on board the view of the criminal as the action unfolded.
So, to write a ballad about an event that had already been given the Hollywood treatment seemed a bit redundant. Instead, I chose to take the far more exciting version depicted in The Sugarland Express and incorporate dialogue and scenes and colour them further with the occasional embellishment. As a ballad, it’s rough around the edges to say the least, but it sure was a lot of fun to write.
The Ballad of Lou Jean Poplin
Through the dusty Texas morning heat
In the year of ’69,
At the Department of Corrections
She takes her place in line
#
To see her man, her husband,
The father of her child:
Clovis Poplin, strong and true,
And just a little wild.
#
With eyes that plead through tears of woe
She tells her sorry tale
Of welfare states and wicked lies
And childhood up for sale.
#
With four months left to go he says
“I need to serve my time.”
“Have you forgot your only son,”
She cries. “Your son and mine?”
#
With a roll of Texas Gold Stamps,
With a love that’s always been,
They strolled straight through the open gates
Did Clovis and Lou Jean.
#
Mom and Pops they sit outside,
From visiting their boy,
A bright green Buick ’56,
Their ride to Delacroix.
#
They both climb in the backseat
Do Clovis and Lou Jean,
Pops asks “Which way you headed?”
“Away from where we’ve been.
#
“Into the wild blue yonder
“And onto Sugarland.
“’Cos Baby Langston’s waiting there
“To hold his Momma’s hand.”
#
But things in life ain’t easy
As ev’rybody knows,
And soon the car’s pulled over.
Guess that’s the way it goes.
#
Which brings us to a good man,
Patrolman Maxwell Slide,
Who, unbeknownst to this young boy
Is going for a ride!
#
For Clovis Poplin, he is fast,
The trooper’s gun is taken,
Soon Maxwell, and the lovers too,
In his cop car they’re escapin’
#
Through Rosenberg and Honda
And onto Sugarland,
To take back Baby Langston
And cross the Rio Grande.
#
So why are these two lovers,
Convicted and unfit,
Deserving of their baby boy,
Their torch forever lit?
#
Let’s think on them awhile
And look at what they’ve done:
They’ve stolen and they’ve cheated
And now they’re on the run.
#
But ne’er a man have either killed,
So against the state they’ll fight
To bring their baby boy back home,
Because their way is right.
#
But now back to our story:
Here Captain Tanner comes,
A figure of authority.
A force of fifty guns.
#
“Give me back the Maxwell boy!”
“Not ‘til the state gives mine!”
“You’re playin’ with your sweet young lives,
“You won’t make the County line!”
#
But Tanner and his old blue eyes
Sees something in these kids.
He sees they must be desperate
To do the things they did.
#
So when his eyes they meet Lou Jean’s
As she looks in her rear-view
He orders to his boys “Stand down,
“You need to let ‘em through!”
#
So westward they kept driving,
This trio in their flight,
Maxwell, Clovis, sweet Lou Jean
Into the Texas night.
#
‘Til they came unto a Drive-Thru
To stop and rest and drink,
Together they split chicken wings
And paused awhile to think.
#
But nearby were two Rangers
Who had them in their scopes,
With itchy trigger fingers,
With eyes black and remote.
#
And Maxwell with his wishbone
Which he broke in two and snapped,
As a Trooper told the boys
“Hold fire! A message from the Cap.
#
“ ‘It ain’t worth the risk,’ he says
“ ‘In case we hit our man.’
“He don’t want to see them dead
“Just sent back to the can.”
#
Act of God? Narrow escape?
A very well-timed wish?
Or the hand of Captain Tanner,
Which prevented this near-miss.
#
So onto Big John’s Car Lot
To hide away and rest,
With Maxwell handcuffed in the car,
Deciding this was best.
#
While Clovis and his sweet Lou Jean
They found an old R.V.
And held each other in their arms
And dreamt of what may be:
#
Baby Langston lying there,
Secluded, safe, and warm
With Ma and Pa beside him,
His shelter from the storm.
#
But dreams are dreams, as we all know
And in a tale like this,
An evil-doer lies in wait
For ev’ry stolen kiss.
#
“KILL COMMUNISTS, NOT PATRIOTS”
A bumper sticker reads
On a jeep parked in the darkness
Amongst the shrubs and trees
#
Where three fat so-called lawmen
(Reserves is all they are),
Load up their guns with buckshot
And take aim at the car.
#
They open fire as Maxwell
Sleeps soundly in the back.
He wakes and yells “Run Clovis!
“We’ve come under attack!”
#
But Clovis and Lou Jean, they fly
To help their new found friend.
They leave the dream behind them,
And drive off round the bend.
#
And as the sun it rises on
A bullet-riddled car,
With three inside, eyes opened wide,
Together they’ve come far.
#
While over there in Sugarland
The cops devise a plan
And Tanner sees the baby boy
And thinks the best he can
#
Of ways to end this happily,
Of ways to end it well,
But ‘happy,’ guns, and stolen lives?
There’s not a hope in Hell.
#
With a heavy heart he orders
The boy put somewhere clear,
The courthouse down the road perhaps?
Just far away from here.
#
For the Poplins they won’t meet him
At the foster parent’s home.
All they’ll find are Rangers.
All they’ll find is there alone
#
With no-one there to help them
Or aid them in their plight,
No cheering from the sidelines,
No cover of the night.
#
The streets they will stand empty
When they come to Sugarland.
In hope they will find refuge
From the fate that’s in God’s hands.
#
‘Course Maxwell’s first to notice
That something is amiss,
A trooper’s intuition,
No good can come of this.
#
Clovis steps out of the car
As Maxwell crouches down,
Telling Lou Jean “Do the same,
“Or end up in the ground.”
#
With a fear for her beloved,
Lou Jean cries “It’s a trap!”
As Clovis turns, the bullet flies,
And hits him in the back.
#
And falling back into the car
Clovis takes the wheel.
The pedal pressed down to the floor,
The tyres smoke and squeal.
#
Another shot rings through the air,
Lou Jean is almost hit.
Glass shatters all around her
And glistens where she sits.
#
Clovis fights to stay alive,
The bullet’s gone right through.
With diapers Maxwell stems the flow,
For all the good they’ll do.
#
The diapers for his baby boy
Are turning bloody red.
He’ll never get to say goodnight
And see him off to bed.
#
The car slows down, as does his heart,
His heart saved for Lou Jean.
The only sound is quiet,
But for a heart-felt scream.
#
As Tanner lifts her from the car
And Maxwell starts to cry,
Her eyes look up beyond the trees
And fix upon the sky.
#
But what of Baby Langston,
What will become of he?
An orphaned boy without his Ma,
Left floating out to sea?
#
With nineteen years of service,
Old Tanner’s going strong,
And Maxwell Slide is recognised,
The subject of a song.
#
With fifteen month’s hard labour,
Her husband laid to rest,
The Welfare and Parole Board
Decided it was best
#
To hand back Baby Langston,
The past is in the past,
Public outcry on their mind
(And covering their ass).
#
While in a town in Texas
A mother and her boy,
Radiant and beautiful,
Reflect each other’s joy.
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A joy that’s never ending,
A love that’s always been,
While words create the pictures of
The ballad of Lou Jean.