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Former American Press sportswriter Carl Dubois blogs about the games people play, in and out of sports, and the people you meet between and outside the lines.

Carl is an award-winning reporter and columnist living in the Willamette Valley in northwest Oregon, near Portland. He is sports editor of the News-Register newspaper in McMinnville, Ore.

Sports and music

Posted April 13, 2009 at 12:41 pm
Filed Under Sports | Leave a Comment

BATON ROUGE — Speaking of music (which I was earlier) …

Without really trying, I’ve built quite a collection of songs related to sports in one way or another (as far as I know, that does not include “One Way Or Another” by Blondie, which has no immediately recognizable relationship to sports).

Right now I’m listening to “Let It Flow (For Dr. J)” by Grover Washington Jr. No, it’s not the CD of Contemporary Jazz I referenced in an earlier post (but that would be a good guess!). If you don’t know who Dr. J is, then we’ve reached an impasse, haven’t we?

Songwriters slip sports into songs for all kinds of reasons. On “Twelve Volt Man” from “One Particular Harbour,” Jimmy Buffett sings of stealing home. Alabama’s “The Cheap Seats” is all about baseball and soaking up the experience at the local ballpark. “Sweet Georgia Brown,” I confess, is in my collection entirely because of the Harlem Globetrotters and a childhood spent trying to approximate their moves with a basketball (or a Nerf basketball, when indoors).

“Wave On Wave” by Pat Green isn’t about sports but just feels like a ballpark song, and LSU backs me up by playing it at Alex Box Stadium on game days. You think of the pieces of music you like to hear in a crowded stadium or arena, and it’s probably something that gets everyone fired up.

Metallica’s “Enter Sandman.” The ubiquitous “Eye of the Tiger.” Your school’s alma mater, fight song or unofficial fight song.

Neil Diamond’s “Sweet Caroline” has become a cliche — perhaps not for the first time, depending upon your musical tastes — but there’s no debating its power to energize thousands of people and get them singing and chanting along, adding a twist here or there.

You can argue about how to spell “Joli Blon” — don’t you love being able to cite Cajun French as more of an oral language rather than a written one, so you can bend it to suit your needs? — but you’d have a hard time convincing a true McNeese fan that something magical doesn’t happen when the band plays it on football Saturday nights.

Do you have a favorite sports-venue song? Do you collect music that reminds you of being at the ballpark, football field or basketball arena?

This will keep you busy while you think about it.