“Spirit In The Sky” Composer Has A Friend In Jesus, Not To Mention A Good Royalty Rate

This weekend’s New York Times featured a profile of “Spirit In The Sky” writer Norman Greenbaum, who’s been living off the success of his 1969 gospel-rock hit for nearly 35 years. Greenbaum fell on some hard times in the ’80s–who among us has not done time as a Northern Californian line cook? –but now he receives at least $10,000 every time the song appears in a movie, despite the fact that no one’s entirely sure what the main verse is about:

Oddly, the tune that’s turned out to be Mr. Greenbaum’s salvation is in part a shout out to Jesus, written and performed by a nice Jewish boy from Massachusetts. As one verse of “Spirit in the Sky” proclaims:

Never been a sinner, I never sinned

I got a friend in Jesus

So you know that when I die

He’s gonna set me up with

The spirit in the sky

Mr. Greenbaum claimed that he has received thousands of e-mail messages and letters about that verse. “A lot of them say, ‘We’re all sinners, we were born sinners, how dare you,’ ” he said. “O.K., so what do I know? ‘Sanford and Son’ was written by Jews and what did they know about being black?”

Ah yes, the time-tested practice of throwing to Sanford and Son wo answer a theological quibble–we do the same thing whenever someone brings up the Iraq War, except we try to dodge it with Mr. Belvedere references. And on a side note: We realize the Times often just puts stories wherever they want, but how is this a “Sunday Styles” story? Are Grateful Dead jeans and hippie slippies back in fashion?

A ‘Spirit’ From the ’60s That Won’t Die [NY Times]