1970 Norman Greenbaum: Spirit In The Sky

An incredibly popular and enduring song, Norman Greenbaum's 'Spirit In The Sky' is a remarkably low-fi recording based around a scuzzy guitar, some dusty psychedelic phrases and a one note handclap beat (which I'll come back to later). If Greil Marcus is right and there really was an 'old, weird America', then 'Spirit In The Sky' would soundtrack it just as well as anything that Dylan and The Band cooked up in the Big Pink basement. Because from the off, the song gives off the aura of times past and the imagery of an evangelical dog and pony show riding a covered wagon into a ghost town to make a few converts of the damned.

Not that converting anybody to the righteous path was any great concern of Greenbaum's; 'Spirit In The Sky' was written purely as an exercise to see if he could write a gospel song in the same way that David Byrne wrote 'Psycho Killer' as an exercise in new wave writing. Despite those 'I got a friend in Jesus' lyrics, Greenbaum is no more a holy roller than Byrne is David Berkowitz, but it's the catchy, singalongacampfire tune he fixed his uplifting theme to that has helped seal the song's popularity.

What's interesting to me is that single time stamp beat that runs throughout. It sounds primitive, like someone pounding the floor with one foot, and some commentators have likened it as a bridge from the sixties to the soon to come stomp of glam rock. But this seems rather wide of the mark and looking in the wrong direction - for me, this motif derives more from the primal rhythms of early delta bluesmen who used that thump to drive their songs of sex and terror of judgement day. Examples are legion, but listen to Willie Dixon's 'Walking The Blues' or John Lee Hooker's 'Boogie Chillen' (to which 'Spirit In The Sky' owes no small debt) to hear what I mean. In modern parlance, what is PJ Harvey's fearsome, wide eyed, blues soaked drawl of 'Goodnight' if not Greenbaum's song played at quarter speed and double volume?

And yes it's a popular song to cover, but subsequent versions, including the chart toppers by Dr & The Medics and Gareth Gates, have forsaken it's roots and sped it up to standard rock double time, with the resultant effect being to remove the terror of the blues and make it into a more ear friendly pop song for a white audience who have trouble clapping on anything but the offbeat. Whether you think this improves the song or not is a personal choice, and does it really matter when you're singing along in the pub? But there's no doubt that the original takes it's inspiration from the past far more than it influences the future and has a flaky, not quite there vibe all of it's own. And a pretty weird one at that.