From the Book of the Prophet Norman
" That was spiritual: they wanted to die with their boots on." They , of course, refers those to gritty cowboys in clichéd western movies – the unwitting inspirations for a landmark hippie generation "gotta-find-a-friend-in-Jesus" song: Spirit in the Sky . Never mind that the one-hit-wonder songwriter Norman Greenbaum is an orthodox Jew, Boston College dropout: "I had to use Christianity because I had to use something; I wanted to die with my boots on [too]." Rodger that! Randomness aside, Spirit in the Sky achieved the archetypal status precious few other songs ever did: it captured the American self-understanding of an entire epoch: from like, '69 to '99. That larger-than-life, finger-snapping, rhythmic swag created by Norm's howling fuzz-box-effected guitar encapsulated the entire post-Woodstock worldview: don't take me too seriously, but I'm goin' places. No wonder it makes Vietnam footage look good. It injects dee