3/21: Samuel Rafael Barber on Spirit in the Sky
Speaking of so-called bad songs from March Badness that are in fact not particularly bad or are in fact actually good, here’s Norman Greenbaum’s “Spirit in the Sky,” defeated in the first round but resurrected for one more crack at your eyes, ears, and heart with a killer essay by Samuel Rafael Barber.
It’s not uncommon for artists to look back at a particular work and bemoan a missed opportunity, or an overstuffed clause, or a single brushstroke out of keeping with the larger composition. Even with works as celebrated as Norman Greenbaum’s “Spirit in the Sky,” you’ll read an interview and never see the piece the same way after considering its creator’s mixed feelings. It’s one thing for Delillo to (at least apocryphally) purchase all available copies of a first work (Americana) to burn them. It's another thing entirely for a work that has resonated with millions to represent failure in the eyes of its creator.
It's a good thing then that I feel no such reservations about my essay. I said what I came to say (in Norm’s spirit) and at least seventy-three human beings enjoyed it enough to vote for it. Or, I said what I came to say and at least seventy-three human beings sufficiently enjoyed the song to rationalize voting for my essay. Or, I said what I came to say and at least seventy-three human beings completely ignored it and voted for the song anyway. It’s all the same in the end.
It was always a lost cause. “Morning Train (9 to 5)” is a tough first round matchup under the best of circumstances, and buttressed with an enlightening essay by T Fleischmann, I didn’t have a chance. It was all in vain (it always is).
I’ve made my peace with this outcome in the five years since. I’d always made my peace with this outcome. Norm helped prepare me. Sure, I was that kid with a morbid sense of humor from the earliest of days. “Expect the worst and hope for the best” or "Everyone you know now or will ever know will be dead one day, and soon" might as well be tattooed under my armpit. It was never in question that the final sentence of the biography attending any published piece of mine would provide an update as to exactly how many remaining years I was projected to live according to the Social Security Administration’s calculator. It was never in doubt that I would lead Norm astray. I’m not Cinderella—I’m Sam in case you’ve forgotten—and I don’t write her sort of stories. We would not be making a deep run into the bracket and pulling off the upset of all upsets. I knew that going in. Still, the first-round loss hurt.
Foreknowledge of your fate will not save you. This is what aging has most taught me. I thought it might save me, back when I began including my life expectancy in my bio. I thought I could condition myself in this way. I hadn’t read Kafka’s letters at that point. The odds of “winning” the competition were outrageously slim, as were the odds of attending dream school after dream school pursuing my passion for literary absurdism for that matter. It’s a wonder that I’m here at all—that out of nothingness came something, and out of that dust and debris came a 5’8’’ Chicano who will never come to terms with how outrageously bad the Mexican food in Colorado is.
I might disagree with Norm on a lot of things. I don’t believe that there’s any sort of spirit in the sky—not in the way he means, at least. My childhood dog is not there. My friends and family will not be waiting for me, there, where we can relive the glorious 2002-2003 Spurs Championship run at a leisurely pace divorced from the system of wage slavery which governed our corporeal lives. But the place he’s singing about? I know that place. My essay is there. Someday, I will be there too, and out of that nothingness will come a 6’2’’ Chicano capable of writing an essay about “Spirit in the Sky” which makes it out of the first round. Or, if that is too much to expect (as Kafka reminds us, “there is always hope--but not for us”), a 5’9’’ Chicano who will eventually come to terms with how outrageously bad the Mexican food in Colorado is. That would really be something. That would be a start. —Samuel Rafael Barber
Slave to the grind,
Ander & Megan