When I day and they lay me to rest

When I die and they lay me to rest

Gonna go to the place that's the best.

I've got a friend in Jesus.

When this number first came out,and what with people,including teenagers,bopping out to it,I distinctly remember thinking that I could scarcely credit my eyes and ears.What on Earth,I thought,was a number about Jesus and Heaven doing being played and danced to in pubs and clubs all over the show?Such subject matter pounding out in nightclubs?With drinking,smoking-all kinds-debauchery,fighting,swearing and goodness only knew what else taking place in them?It simply didn't register.Guys,it still doesn't.I checked this whole question out,and this is what I discovered.Norman Greenbaum has never actually been a Christian,or anything like it.He said the number grew out of a number of things,including listening to Porter Waggoner singing about some preacher guy.He also thought that a number about Jesus might just be OK by the nightlife brigade and so on,whereas one about God Himself might not.His parents are on record as saying noone was as surprised as they were by the entire thing.It would make it to as far as number 3 in the charts,and sold two million copies.Subsequent attempts to make it big failed apparently.I have said a number of times in my articles for Am I right that I never could abide fast dance music,and the idiotic scenes it spawns.Well,I always found myself even more nonplussed by the sight of people shambling all over the floor like a pack of total headcases to a number as religiously charged as this.What was everyone thinking of?Did people believe that it was perfectly OK to knock back the booze and then dance to a reference to Jesus?Sorry guys but I just can't abide mentally challenged thinking like that,even if those concerned are unbelievers.Checked out the nonsensical lines I picked?That proves that not only was Greenbaum not a Christian,but that he knew absolutely nothing at all about the Christian faith.It runs exclusively on the strength of the fact that it's adherents are born sinners.That that's why Jesus came into the world in the first place.To pay the penalty for sin Himself,and subsequently help them deal with sin.So to say,as this song does,that you've a friend in Jesus because you've never sinned,would sound to God as the single most crazy statement ever uttered throughout eternity.Just who or what for that matter is this Spirit in the sky Greenbaum refers to even?God?Jesus?Some other Heavenly personage?The question isn't answered.Also,the song talks about getting right with Jesus as a RECOMMENDATION to this Spirit in the sky,as if we're talking about a job reference or something.The whole thing remains one of the most outlandish episodes in the history of pop music.

I know you already earmarked these as inappropriate, but they're really not. You really don't think that this song straddles the line between genuine respect for gospel and totally sarcastic parody. First, Norman Greenbaum is a Jewish dude. Second, true 'nuff... no one has ever lived a life free from sin, unless you're a believer and think that Jesus wasn't born in "original sin." (I guess there's parthenogenesis, though I don't know if anyone has ever proven that a person has been born parthenogenetically.) There are silly lines in the song like... "I'm gonna go to the place that's the best." This is essentially about the way that sanctimonious true believers think. "I'm so fucking wonderful that when I die I'm going straight to heaven... no if's, and's or but's... because I've lived a life free from iniquity... a life IN Jesus"... whatever IN Jesus is supposed to mean. Plus, I mean... the song has that raunchy blues head with the famous distorted/reverbed whammy lick. By many, the blues was considered "the Devil's music," particularly among the folks of the MI Delta, where the blues was born. It's a wonderful song... totally dated... totally iconic... great beat... great black-girl backup vocals... silly lyrics... and puts a smile on your face. And no... I am not Norman Greenbaum's mother. Heh.

Nobody was sinless except Jesus. All have sinned and come short of the glory of God. Romans 3:23. There is not a just man upon the earth that doeth good and sinneth not. Ecclesiastes 7:20. There is none righteous, no not one. Romans 3:10. They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no not one. Romans 3:12

A lot of listeners have mistakingly believed that this was a Christian worship song. In fact, it was mocking Hare Krishnas and other Christian fundamentalists. This line is a dead givaway in saying that, to a fundamentalist, Jesus can only be friends with followers "who have never sinned" in their entire life, as opposed to the common Christian belief that one is born a sinner and is "made perfect" by the body and blood of Christ.