“Open Up Your Heart (And Let the Sunshine In)” (1954) – The Cowboy Church Sunday School * 45: “Open Up Your Heart (And Let the Sunshine In)” / “The Lord Is Counting on You” * Label: Decca * Charts: Billboard #8
Stuart Hamblen was a popular singing radio cowboy who found religion in the late forties after attending a Billy Graham revival and ended up running for president on the Prohibition party ticket in ’52. After his conversion, he also transformed his radio show into “The Cowboy Church of the Air,” the popularity of which pushed this single to Billboard‘s top ten in 1955. The singers are Hamblen’s wife, his two teenage daughters, and their two friends. The record was recorded Chipmunk-style at 33 1/3 RPM so they’d all sound like children at 45 RPM. It found new life in 1965 when Pebbles and Bamm Bamm (the baby versions), sang it on The Flintstones. Of glaring notice: 1) the line “it’s all about the Devil, and I’ve learned to hate him so”—hate being a word choice with long rippling behavioral connotations when condoned in a Sunday school setting; 2) the Devil is the only deity mentioned in the song; and 3) isn’t this a strange choice for the prehistoric Flinstones? It was likely chosen for its real-life plausibility as a Chipmunkian hit single with no second thought given.