"Jesus Wants Me for a Sunbeam" is a song originally recorded by Scottish

Scotland

Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...

 alternative

Alternative rock

Alternative rock is a genre of rock music and a term used to describe a diverse musical movement that emerged from the independent music underground of the 1980s and became widely popular by the 1990s...

 band The Vaselines

The Vaselines

The Vaselines are an alternative rock band from Glasgow, Scotland. Formed in 1986, the band was originally a duo between its songwriters Eugene Kelly and Frances McKee, but later added James Seenan and Eugene's brother Charlie Kelly on bass and drums respectively from the band Secession. McKee had...

 for their EP

Extended play

An EP is a musical recording which contains more music than a single, but is too short to qualify as a full album or LP. The term EP originally referred only to specific types of vinyl records other than 78 rpm standard play records and LP records, but it is now applied to mid-length Compact...

 Dying for it

Dying for It (EP)

Dying for It was the second release by Glasgow alternative rock group The Vaselines, like its predecessor an extended play single. The EP was later included on their career retrospective collection The Way of the Vaselines: A Complete History....

. It is a parody

Parody

A parody , in current usage, is an imitative work created to mock, comment on, or trivialise an original work, its subject, author, style, or some other target, by means of humorous, satiric or ironic imitation...

 on the Christian

Christian

A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament...

 children's hymn

Hymn

A hymn is a type of song, usually religious, specifically written for the purpose of praise, adoration or prayer, and typically addressed to a deity or deities, or to a prominent figure or personification...

, "I'll Be a Sunbeam

I'll Be a Sunbeam

"I'll Be a Sunbeam" is a popular children's Christian hymn composed by Nellie Talbot; it is sung to music composed in 1900 by Edwin O. Excell....

", which has the opening line "Jesus wants me for a sunbeam".

The song was a hit only in indie-pop and twee circles until in 1992, The Vaselines re-released the song with a slight title change ("Jesus Doesn't Want Me for a Sunbeam") on the compilation album The Way of the Vaselines: A Complete History

The Way of the Vaselines: A Complete History

The Way of the Vaselines: A Complete History is a compilation album by the indie rock band The Vaselines, released May 1992 on Sub Pop Records, catalogue SP145b. The album compiles every previous release by the band, the two EP's Son of A Gun and Dying For It, as well as their only long-playing...

.

Nirvana

Nirvana (band)

Nirvana was an American rock band that was formed by singer/guitarist Kurt Cobain and bassist Krist Novoselic in Aberdeen, Washington in 1987...

 released a cover of "Jesus Doesn't Want Me for a Sunbeam" on their live acoustic album MTV Unplugged in New York

MTV Unplugged in New York

MTV Unplugged in New York is a live album by the American rock band Nirvana. It features an acoustic performance taped at Sony Music Studios in New York City on November 18, 1993 for the television series MTV Unplugged. The show was directed by Beth McCarthy and first aired on the cable television...

. Nirvana also released two more versions of this song on their 2004 box set With the Lights Out

With the Lights Out

With the Lights Out is a box set, containing three CDs and one DVD, of previously rare or unreleased material, including b-sides, demos, rough rehearsal recordings and live recordings, from the American rock band Nirvana. It was released in November 2004...

. This included an acoustic

Acoustic music

Acoustic music comprises music that solely or primarily uses instruments which produce sound through entirely acoustic means, as opposed to electric or electronic means...

 version recorded in Europe

Europe

Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

 in 1994, along with a live electric performance on the DVD

DVD

A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....

 section of the box-set.

On the version contained on the MTV Unplugged in New York album, Kurt Cobain

Kurt Cobain

Kurt Donald Cobain was an American singer-songwriter, musician and artist, best known as the lead singer and guitarist of the grunge band Nirvana...

refers to the song as: "a rendition of
an old Christian song, I think. But we do it the Vaselines' way."