What the Hell Am I Doing on TSN’s OTR?
I’ve been invited to appear as part of the roundtable on Off the Record on Monday the 25th. I’ve also been told that the discussion might veer to various rallying cries at sporting events.
If that’s the case, let’s revisit a column I wrote for the Metro papers back in April.
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Here are the real stories behind the music that’s used to get sports crowds going nuts:
“Rock and Roll Part 2”/Gary Glitter: Legend has it that the Colorado Rockies were the first to use “The Hey Song” back in the late 1970s because its primal drumbeat and the chant-ability of the “Hey” bits made it a perfect arena song. Even though Glitter was jailed in Vietnam on child abuse charges (he’s out now and back living in England), he still collects sizeable royalty cheques. Every time the song is played in public—including at sporting events—he’s owed money.
“We Will Rock You”/Queen: Another tribal drumbeat than never fails to rile a crowd into stomping and clapping and chanting. Queen wrote it in response to the crowd’s reaction at a gig on their 1977 British tour. At the end of the set, the audience broke into “You’ll Never Walk Alone,” the official crowd anthem at Liverpool and Celtic FC football matches. When the show was over, Queen looked at each other and said “We need an anthem like that.”
“Get Ready for This”/2 Unlimited: How many games have you been to where they played this just as things were getting started? Two things you should know: (1) The “Y’all ready for this?” sample was taken from a track called “It’s Funky Enough” by The D.O.C.; and (2) The original version of the song featured sports announcer Mike Buffer’s famous catchphrase “Are you ready to ruuuuummmmmbllllleeee?” In 1992, he trademarked that phrase and now anyone anywhere who uses it without asking permission and paying for the privilege is sued. Since then he’s grossed over FOUR HUNDRED MILLION DOLLARS from that catchphrase. I have no idea how well The D.O.C. have done.
“Stadium Doodads”/Bobby Kent: You know it: “Da-da-da-DAT-da-DA! CHARGE!” According to Kent, he wrote that as part of his 26-bar rallying cry in the late 70s. He claims that he’s been paid only a fraction of what’s due to him—and reviewing the evidence, he may have a solid case. He’s planning to sue 100 sports teams for unauthorized public performance of his composition.
However, Kent’s plans have hit a snag. As soon as his story hit the news, it seemed like the whole world became determined to prove Kent was full of crap. My favourite proof? YouTube clips of episodes of The Flintstones from the middle 60s that include someone playing “Da-da-da-DAT-da-DA”–probably through a prehistoric conch shell or something.
Wikipedia insists that the musical phrase originated in the 1940s with a composer at USC named Tommy Walker and his co-writer, Dick Winslow. Using Google News, others found stories from the 1950s where Walker complained that plenty of people were constantly ripping him off. USC came to his rescue, publishing copyrighted sheet music of the USC Trojans “charge” song dating to 1955.
“And now, Jimmy Holmstrom at the organ.” Anyone else miss his musical interludes at Maple Leaf Gardens?
Buffer's phrase is "Let's get ready to rumblllllle"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WvufFwdqMzg