TV producer Alan Sachs wanted a Lovin' Spoonful-like theme song for a new ABC sitcom entitled Kotter. Sachs's agent, Dave Bendett, also represented Sebastian and arranged for a meeting between the two. Initially, Sebastian had considerable difficulty with the lyrics since including the title character's name didn't lend itself to a sufficient number of obvious rhymes. Instead, Sebastian decided to focus the lyrics on the idea of the series' premise of Kotter returning to the very place he grew up, and having dreamt of leaving, to do something positive. The producers liked the resulting song so much that they changed the name of the series to Welcome Back, Kotter. Co-produced by Steve Barri and Sebastian, the song eventually sold over one million copies. The song originally had one verse, meant for the TV series. Because of the popularity of the show, Sebastian, in the single version, added a second verse to the song, as well as an instrumental section featuring a harmonica solo, before he resumed finishing up the verse, as well as the repeated chorus and coda to finish the song. The single version would eventually be used during the closing credits of Welcome Back, Kotter. Some final season episodes play the entire song, less the instrumental section, during the closing credits. In 1996, MTV used the song in a promo to "welcome back" David Lee Roth to Van Halen. In 2020, the song was used in a TV commercial for Applebee's to welcome patrons back to the restaurant after it had been forced to closed for several months due to the COVID-19 quarantine.
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Northern California experimental band Mr. Bungle covered the song on January 13, 1992, in back-to-back English and Spanish versions, at The Berkeley Square in Berkeley, California.
Canadian country music artistChris Cummings covered the song in 2009 and released his version as a single. The version was later included on his 2010 album Give Me Tonight.
The song was sampled by rapper Lupe Fiasco for his song "Welcome Back Chilly", rapper Mase for his song "Welcome Back", hip hop groupOnyx in their song "Slam Harder", and by rapper AZ for his song "Once Again".
Swedish dream pop group jj recorded a version of the song in 2009. This version of the song is used in the trailer for the second season of MTV's Scream.
On May 1, 2020, Count Bass D released a cover of the song on his Bandcamp site, commenting, "This take is a nod to the light at the end of this Coronavirus tunnel. It's a peaceful piano rendition aimed to help with the stress of these times."
