Music Inspired by Sports

Beginning in 1912 and ending in 1948, the Olympics awarded medals to "art competitions" consisting of works of literature, painting, sculpture, architecture and music inspired by sports. "Into a New Life" by the composer Josef Suk won a silver medal in 1932, a far cry from later sports-inspired tunes like Shaq's "Shoot Pass Slam."

In a more contemporary Europe sports-inspired music has yielded impressive results. The great work "Tour de France" by Kraftwerk celebrates cycling not only in theme but by sampling sounds of the sport throughout the song. New Order composed the song "World in Motion" for England's football team, which includes the sunny pronouncement that "Love's got the world in motion/ And I can't believe it's true" alongside a hokey rap from player John Barnes. Not their finest (or lowest) hour, the song is at least fun and even included on their retrospective (the best of) New Order album which includes classics like "True Faith" and "Blue Monday."

We also have fight songs, which our writer Erik Adams carefully plotted out for us previously. These songs are team specific, and Adams includes the 1961 composition "Meet the Mets" as just one example.

Another I'd like to include is the tune "I Wanna Be a NY Ranger" by John Cafiero, written for the hockey team of the same name and performed by The Misfits. Weirdly enough, the franchise never made the song an official anthem. According to Wikipedia,"...the Rangers' marketing department objected to the use of the word "danger" in the lyrics: 'I wanna be a New York Ranger/I wanna live a life of danger.' Cafiero and The Misfits refused to alter the lyrics, and as a result ownership of the song was never signed over." That sounds like a lose/lose. The Rangers lost a well-intended tribute song, and The Misfits lost yet another chance to shamelessly market themselves.

Accidental Anthems

Todd Rundgren is known for writing a diverse body of music, from the weepy ballad "Hello It's Me" to power pop staple "Couldn't I Just Tell You" to the ubiquitous "Bang the Drum All Day." Armed with association to goofiness and revelry and a simplistic message and beat, the song was destined to be paired with something - be it a sports team or a theme park advertisement. "Bang the Drum All Day" was drafted (heh) to accompany every Green Bay Packers touchdown since 1985. The jaunty, irritating little ditty thus achieved relative immortality, at least as far as Packers fans are concerned.

Looking at the Jock Jams compilations, we come across a number of flash-in-the-pan dance groups who had one big hit but whose work - like 2 Unlimited's "Get Ready for This" - has become a theme song for a major sports franchise (The San Antonio Spurs, in this case) long after the song faded from the charts. You'd expect to hear many of these songs at a Bar Mitzvah during the Clinton years, but rarely afterward. Jock Jams is a surprising haven for these otherwise dated songs. Even the recent ESPN compilation Stadium Anthems: Music for the Fans released in 2003 includes songs you wouldn't even expect to hear anywhere else this side of 1995, from "Unbelievable" by EMF to "Power" by Snap!.

Worlds Collide

Occasionally professional athletes will try their hand at recording a song or an album. Musicians don't often segue out of their careers to become athletes, if only because training and working out are antithetical to the rock and roll pillars of getting trashed and sleeping late. Of all the crossovers, the most hilarious and common seem to be either a group, sports-themed effort or a solo crossover into rap. Of the former, we have the Grammy nominated(!) Super Bowl Shuffle, and in the latter category we have everything from Deion Sanders' tone-deaf ode to excess "Must be the Money" to Tony Parker's more recent foray into the medium.

While there's no rule that professional athletes have to be terrible musicians it seems to be the case most of the time. With only so many hours in the day, a person can't really be expected to be both a musical savant and an amazing athlete. It'd be fair to say that most people can dabble a little at both - it's when someone excels at one and completely fails at another that we really sit up and take notice. In some ways it's a shame, but it's hard to feel too bad for anyone already pulling in six figures who decides to moonlight, poorly, in a career that dedicated musicians would give a limb to pursue.

In their own way, both sports and music are alternately seen as simply "entertainment" by some and a reason to live by others. Either way, the fusions between the two are typically more in line with keeping things up-tempo and not especially serious. Unless you count "Into a New Life," which you probably don't.