Norman Greenbaum-Spirit In The Sky(video)

http://www.angelfire.com/ak2/intelligencerreport/greenbaum_spritin.html ^

[navysealdad]

Greenbaum set out to write a religious rock song. He is Jewish, but instead of using a Jewish word for God, he used "Jesus" because he thought it would be more marketable. The original inspiration for this was a song about a preacher by Country singer Porter Waggoner. Greenbaum was also influenced by Folk revival music and traditional Southern Blues.

[JoeProBono]

[Ladycalif]

Ping for later

[Dinah Lord]

Spirit in the sky bump

Thanks JoeProBono - that was a nice way to start the morning...

[Outlaw Woman]

Have always loved that song. It didn't matter what I was doing at the time, when I'd hear the first chord I was off to the 'volume' button on the radio/stereo to CRANK it up! Thanks for posting it. Sounds even better today than it did back then.

[6SJ7]

Song still sounds great after all these years. A classic riff. Thanks!

[ozark hilljilly]

Probably one of the most recognizable opening guitar riffs in rock history.
Dug it as a young teen, dug it as a young adult and even now as an aging former youth, I still crank it up when it’s on the car radio!!
(Sometimes the 1 hit wonder songs endure.)

[Eric in the Ozarks]

Loved the song.

[massgopguy]

The first of two Number One Hits from Malden MA. The other being More Than Words by Extreme. Norman would play guitar on his back porch on Emerald Street and the old Italian ladies would throw clothes pins at him.

[scoobysnak71]

Correct me if I’m wrong, but on the movie “Apollo 13”, when they took off, this was playing as the big ‘ole Saturn 5 accelerated past the tower. Very awesome! The metalic punch of that guitar combined with the power of that rocket was a great audio/visual combination. As a kid I ALWAYS watched as that huge rocket took off. Still, if I’m correct, the most powerful machine ever concieved and built on this planet.

[Ladycalif]

Thanks for that