I didn’t say that Greenbaum was a Christian, but the song was a part of the Jesus Freak period.
Jesus Freaks were a great thing of what emerged from the time.
Songfacts describes it this way: “Norman Greenbaum was kind enough to tell us about this song. He set out to write a religious rock song, and he is Jewish. Instead of using a Jewish word for God, he used “Jesus” because he thought it would be more marketable. It took months for Greenbaum to finish the music, but the lyrics came really quickly. Interesting fact we also learned about Norman: he used to run a goat farm.
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.”
I thought it tried to ride the coattails of Jesus Christ Superstar.
Listening to Old and in the Way live in Santa Rosa from 1973 while I read this...
Wow! Porter Waggoner and Norman Greenbaum. I would have never connected the two.