T. Texas Drives the Back Roads (aka Burma Shave)

If you happen to drive some of the more rural stretches of highway in the midwest, you may come across a sequence of five or six signs just between the shoulder and the barb wire fencing that keeps the corn in its place—each sign a line of a verse that builds to the last line/sign urging you to own a gun.  Hip! Hip! NRA!  Or not.

The ploy dates back to the 1920s, when the Burma Shave company used humorous poems on road side signs to pitch what was then a novel product—a shaving cream that didn’t need to be lathered with a brush.  Each set of Burma Shave signs, read as they rolled past the car window.  The campaign and the signs flourished for several decades, then gradually disappeared, as did the company, as Burma Shave lost out to new brands of brushless shaving cream.

When I was a boy in the late 1950s, there were still some stretches of road on up into Lake County in California where a few Burma Shave signs could still be found along the road side, weathered and no longer standing quite straight but still readable as I watched from the back window to see what the next turn of the road would bring.  By and large I didn’t get the humor.  At seven or eight the double in the (mild) entendres were entirely over my head, but I did sense how the rhymes led to a final close and turn and enjoyed the distraction as we drove along to see great aunt whomever or cousin so and so.

The B.S. jingles that follow mime the form of the Burma Shave jingles, but (I confess) these bring the discrete innuendo of some of the originals a bit more (or a lot more) to the fore.  They are not profound.  You will not see these posted along the side of the road.  They do not propose that owning a gun will solve all your problems.

I want to thank my buddy T. Texas Twiddle for gathering these and passing them along.  T. Texas, as it happens, only drives the back roads.

 

T. Texas Drives the Back Roads Collecting Rural Advertising

Keep yer chaw
and skip the quibble.
Clean shave that jaw
and wipe the dribble.
All ya need is
B.(urma)-S.(have)

*

If to the mountain
you done been and she
still won’t let you in,
it’s cause your chin’s
a sin. Better buy
B.(urma)-S.(have)

*

Drive for show, putt
for dough, so the golfer’s
claim to know but
if your really want
to stroke her butt get
B.(urma)-S.(have)

*

If you’re all alone,
just you ’n yer iPhone,
buddy that’s a sign
all’s not fine.
Better get some
B.(urma)-S.(have)

*

Mr. Clean
was never mean
cause he loved
that special sheen
he got from
B.(urma)-S.(have)

*

Ladies, if
your boy toy
ain’t slick,
scape that man
and take a lick
B.(urma)-S.(have)

*

When Allen did Howl
the critics did scowl.
It wasn’t the yowl
they found weird.
It was the beard.
B.(urma)-S.(have)

*

Jack K liked shirts
of plaid and Old
Grandad but what made
him really sad was on
that road he couldn’t find
B.(urma)-S.(have)

*

When yer out
a Karma ’n’ can’t
find the Dharma,
put your faith
in the Pharma.
B.(urma)-S.(have)

*

On safari in
the Serengeti
Teddy the Yeti
feasted on spaghetti
but alas could find no
B.(urma)-S.(have)

*

If her saddle
she won’t let you
paddle, stop all
that fiddle faddle,
skedaddle and get some
B.(urma)-S.(have)

*

Young King Tut
had a scrawny butt
but what did him in
was the scraggle
on his chin.
B.(urma)-S.(have)

*

The Yeti in the Alps
did hide his hide cause
his hide evoked no pride,
and alas he lacked a Sherpa
guide to lead him to the
B.(urma)-S.(have)

*

If your cookie
won’t share her nookie
cause your hairy
like a Wookie,
time to buy some
B.(urma)-S.(have)

*

When Betty Lou wanted
to screw she went downtown,
and bopped around
until she found a likely rube
and squeezed his tube of
B.(urma)-S.(have)

*

If with Saundra you’d
double your entendre,
to the store better zip
and be sure you strip
it all from your upper lip
B.(urma)-S.(have)

*

When yer hockey momma
gets out her lipstick,
drop the puck and
grab yer dipstick
and don’t forgit yer
B.(urma)-S.(have)

*

Uncle Bill kept a still way back
in the hills ’n’ couldn’t buy
Burma Shave, but Rev’nooer Dan
stayed in town and Aunt Alice
happ’ly raised her pretty blue gown
B.(urma)-S.(have)

*

If phone sex
is your thing
then a ring a ding
ding that thing
cause you don’t need
B.(urma)-S.(have)

*

If after the dancy
yer a hopin
to tickle
her fancy
better buy ya some
B.(urma)-S.(have)

*

Cap’n Ahab away did sail
hopin to score with a big white whale.
If he’d a stayed ashore
and slicked up his chin
his tale of tail woulda had a different end
B.(urma)-S.(have)

*

If to your importuning
she won’t cave
and it’s back seat spooning
you do crave,
better get yourself some
B.(urma)-S.(have)

*

When I sit’er
on the shitter
and it comes
to Twitter, I ain’t
no quitter
B.(urma)-S.(have)

*

When she fiddles
yer pair a dice,
rosin your bow
and play real nice
and don’t forget your
B.(urma)-S.(have)

*

If indeed in Eden you
would troll for that sweet
and sacred jelly roll,
be sure that first you
to the store do stroll
B.(urma)-S.(have)