14 June 1986
I was vaguely aware of this record as a child at the time, perhaps after hearing one of my primary school classmates singing it. Whatever notions this group had of being glam rock revivalists and the like, primary school children were probably the natural audience of ‘Spirit In The Sky’ by Doctor and the Medics. Why, in the video (below) they even do the window gag from ’60s Batman, which was being repeated on Saturday morning kids TV in Ireland and the UK.
I was certainly not aware of glam rock, which I was soon to discover at a worryingly impressionable age when a Sunday morning music show on Irish TV, The Beat Box, featured old footage of The Sweet in their flamboyant prime, nor was I aware of the proto-glam original of ‘Spirit In The Sky’ by Norman Greenbaum. Sensibly, Doctor and the Medics don’t mess with it too much; that crunching riff and stomping beat are already pure gold, so they only add a weedy ’80s synth and weedier ’80s singing. The word ‘add’ there should not be construed as constructive.
Odd to think that in 1986 we were only six years away from a proper glam-rock revival in the sensational form of ‘The Drowners’ by Suede. In that light, Doctor and the Medics were just a covers band doing a bit of dressing up.
