This came up for reasons I will not share.
Despite the mention of Jesus, it is hard to descibe this as a Christian song. Despite the presence of guitars, it is hard to describe this as guitar playing. Despite the presence of girls clapping and moving, it is hard to describe this as choreography.
He is from Malden, outside of Boston. I never knew that. The story is interesting. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kN45E4KMDv4
ReplyDeleteWhen I first heard this, I was a junior high-school kid painting houses in the summer. I thought it was the dumbest song I ever heard, even after hearing Casey Kasem's even mor excruciating American Top 40 backstory about the meeting with tribal chiefs for their supposed blessings. When 'Taking Care of Business' came out a couple of years later, it was a close competition for First of the Worst, but Spirit in the Sky still kept the lead, in my view. At least TCB had a beat and some kind of point - probably part of it was that they played the damn thing to death.
ReplyDeleteMy Sharona gets an honorable mention as First Runner Up for First of the Worst, by the way.
ReplyDeleteThe repetition did get to one. We could get two of the Boston stations in southern NH, so we weren't completely dependent on one teen music station. But just a few miles north, up in the Lakes Region, if reception wasn't good you had to endure whatever was on the one Top 40 station. At the time it seems a great hardship, because portable tape players were not yet a thing. In retrospect, it was an unusual new thing that teenagers had enough spending money that advertisers could keep any of them going, but we were already spoiled and expected our needs to be looked after.
ReplyDeleteAhhhhh, that came out when I was first learning to be an AF undergrounder, and spent eight years in 33 different holes in the ground. I liked the song then, and still do.
ReplyDeleteWhat's interesting to me is the time it took: 3 minutes, 51 seconds. My second missile wing was the 351st.