It is Sunday so allow me to follow up on yesterday’s Church music post with another “spiritual” one today and that is Spirit in the Sky.
Written by Norman Greenbaum in 1969, Spirit in the Sky often appears on compilation lists ranking the top One Hit Wonders of all time (click here for an example where Spirit comes in at Number 8.)
Remember Dick Clark on American Bandstand’s Rate a Record (click here) where the two folks would evaluate a new song? They would always say something along the lines that the song “Had a good beat and was easy to dance to.” Guess you could say that about Spirit in the Sky also because it certainly does make you want to move. But what caught my ear most of all and made me want to hear the song over and over was the fuzztone guitar that Norman played. Listen and you’ll see what I mean:
Greenbaum was raised as an Orthodox Jew and noted in an interview that he received some flack for his third verse (2:40 mark above) wherein he stated “Never been a sinner…”
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| https://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/24/fashion/24norman.html |
Jews don’t believe in that Original Sin business that Christians conjured up (click here.) To be honest with you, I always had a little trouble figuring that one out too. Maybe it wasn’t just the fuzztone in Spirit in the Sky that caught my ear.