Norman Greenbaum was born and raised an Orthodox Jew and came out of nowhere with this fuzzed-up psychedelic masterpiece about how you gotta have a friend in Jesus (“So that when you die / He’s gonna recommend you / To the spirit in the sky”).

Well, not quite nowhere: he started out in a group called Dr West’s Medicine Show & Junk Band, who recorded a terrible ‘comedy’ song called The Eggplant That Ate Chicago in 1967.

Inspired musically by blues, country and gospel (there’s a gospel trio singing amid the psych-blues haze), Norm says Spirit In The Sky’s lyrics – which he wrote in 15 minutes – were inspired by Western movies where cowboys always wanted to “die with their boots on” and by a greeting card depicting a Native American Indian ceremony.

It sold two million copies and has been No.1 for three different artists in three different decades: 1970 for Norm, 1983 for Dr & the Medics, and 2003 by Gareth Gates ft The Kumars.

His follow-up single, still rocking that rebel Orthodox Jew vibe, was called Canned Ham. It’s as reassuringly terrible as its title. This, however… is one of those songs that seems to start off at twice the volume of whatever you were listening to before: it just explodes out of the speakers. And is all the better for that.