This 1969 One-Hit Wonder Was Working As a Cook When His Song Went No. 1 (And It’s Still One of Our Favorites Today)

Even a one-hit wonder has a certain air of glamour and celebrity (a hit’s a hit even if there’s only one of them, after all), but Norman Greenbaum wasn’t exactly living on Easy Street after the release of his 1969 hit song. Subsequent releases failed to achieve the same level of success as the title track to his debut album, Spirit in the Sky. By the time the 1980s rolled around, Harris was back to working his “day job” full-time.

Videos by American Songwriter

Still, the pervasiveness of his iconic track, “Spirit in the Sky”, lived on. Greenbaum’s name might not be the most recognizable in the rock ‘n’ roll world, but the sheer ubiquity of this song in television, film, and radio means that most people will, at the very least, recognize the distinct, fuzzy opening riff. (Greenbaum achieved this guitar tone with the help of a friend, who put a fuzzbox inside his Fender Telecaster.)

The song’s legacy lived on so long after its release, in fact, that multiple artists have covered it since to their own great success. In 1986, Doctor and the Medics released their own version of the track, which topped the U.K. Singles Chart for a whopping three weeks. That surpassed Greenbaum’s version, which peaked at No. 3 in the U.S., although it stayed there for an equally impressive three months.

17 Years Later, This 1969 One-Hit Wonder Got a New Life

Just under two decades after Norman Greenbaum enjoyed the success of his first and only chart-topping hit, British neo-psych band Doctor and the Medics released their own version of “Spirit in the Sky”. The song proved to be an instant success in their native U.K. Meanwhile, Greenbaum, who was living in Santa Rosa, California, was at what most musicians would call their “day job.”

Speaking to The Guardian in 2025, Greenbaum revealed, “I was working as a cook when Doctor and the Medics took it back to No. 1 in the U.K. Then, Gareth Gates’ 2003 version meant it was No. 1 in three different decades. It’s been in countless movies, including Apollo 13, Ocean’s 11, and Guardians of the Galaxy. I’m 82. A few years ago, I was a passenger in a car crash and spent three weeks in a coma. I feel like I was granted another life. So now, every day, I pray and give thanks to the spirit in the sky.”

Not every artist who becomes a one-hit wonder can say their song is as ubiquitous today as it was when it first came out. But Greenbaum is a notable exception. The music industry might not have latched on to his subsequent works as tightly as they did “Spirit in the Sky”, but this song’s legacy proves that if the song is good enough, one hit is all you need.

Photo by Arthur Grimm/United Archives via Getty Images