Jerry McGill was once a promising rockabilly musician who had a contract with Sun Records. But his music career fell victim to his criminal ambitions: Jerry was known to rob a bank now and then. After a turbulent period of fleeing and hiding, he ended up in prison for quite a while. Today McGill is a seventy-year old, badly adjusted outlaw with a drinking problem and a drug addiction who is told he has cancer. In a final attempt to gain immortality, he decides to make a musical comeback. A hilarious movie about a hopelessly charming loose canon.