At slightly over 17 minutes, it occupies the entire second side of the album. The middle of the song features a two-and-a-half-minuteRon Bushy drum solo.
A 2-minute-52-second 45-rpm version of "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida" was Iron Butterfly's only song to reach thetop 40, reaching number 30,[7] while the album itself reached number four onthe album chart and has sold over 30 million copies.[a] An 8-minute-20-second edit of the song was included inthe soundtrack to the 1986 filmManhunter.[15] In 2009, it was named the 24th-greatest hard rock song of all time byVH1.[16] It is also often regarded as an influence on heavy metal music and one of the first recordings of the genre.[17][18]
Though it was not recorded until their second album, "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida" was written during Iron Butterfly's early days. According to drummerRon Bushy, organist-vocalistDoug Ingle wrote the song one evening while drinking an entire gallon ofRed Mountain wine. When the inebriated Ingle then played the song for Bushy, who wrote down the lyrics for him, he was slurring his words so badly that what was supposed to be "in the Garden of Eden" was interpreted by Bushy as "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida".[19][20]
Even though nearly all of Iron Butterfly's songs were quite structured, the idea of turning the minute-and-a-half-long ballad into an extended jam emerged very early on.Jeff Beck claims that when he saw Iron Butterfly perform at the Galaxy Club onSunset Boulevard in Los Angeles in April 1967, half a year before the band recorded their first album, their entire second set consisted of a 35-minute-long version of "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida".[19] The track was recorded at Ultrasonic Studios inHempstead,Long Island, New York.[21]
The song contains amusical quotation of the Christmas hymn "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen", included by Ingle because he "wanted to touch the spiritual". The song's structure and drum solo refer to the Congolese ChristianMissa Luba, whichErik Brann introduced to the group.[22]
TheIncredible Bongo Band covered the song in 1973.[29] The composer and percussionistDavid Van Tieghem released a version and two remixes in 1986.[30]16 BIT (a German dance project from 1986 to 1989 by Michael Münzing and Luca Anzilotti) recorded in 1987 a single "(Ina) Gadda-Da-Vida",[31] also included in albumInaxycvgtgb.[32] New Jersey psychedelic band 6 Feet Under recorded a version in the late 1960s.[33]In 1987,Slayer recorded a cover version that appears on theLess than Zero soundtrack. RapperNas sampled the Incredible Bongo Band's cover version of the song on his singles "Thief's Theme" and "Hip Hop Is Dead".
Ron Bushy's drum solo was the inspiration forRingo Starr's drum solo on "The End" from the Beatles’ 1969 albumAbbey Road. It was the last song recorded collectively by all four Beatles.[34][35]
The song is prominently featured in the finale of the 1986 filmManhunter, in which serial killerFrancis Dolarhyde plays the song (via an8-track tape of its parent album) throughout the shootout.[36]
The song is featured in a 1995 episode ofThe Simpsons, "Bart Sells His Soul".Bart Simpson tricks the congregants of a Sunday mass at the First Church of Springfield into singing the song as an opening hymn titled "In the Garden of Eden" by "I. Ron Butterfly".Reverend Lovejoy describes the "hymn" as "sound[ing] like rock and/or roll" and punishes Bart for the prank by making him clean out the organ pipes, which he has "befouled with [his] popular music". Homer recalls a time when he and Marge "used to make out to this 'hymn'". The church organist, Gertie, an elderly woman, collapses after finishing the seventeen-minute long song.[37]
