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Feature
Football Songs … An Obsession That Will Make Me Go Blind
The Ongoing Trails Of A UK Football Print Magazine Editor
by Keith Bowden
17/9/2007
Back in the late eighties – early nineties I was a big fan of Q magazine.
As I have got older I have moved through other music magazines – Mojo (too old for me), Uncut (too punk for me) – until I have currently settled on The Word (which has links back to early Q).
But like my childhood comic, Tiger, Q holds a special place in my heart as the first proper magazine I bought regularly, and with my own money (well my mum’s actually, I was still at uni and living off the parental handouts).
One of my favourite parts of the month was trying to work out the “spinal message” that Q had. It linked to something in the issue, but mostly obscurely. I did once win an “I’m the director round here” t-shirt from Q’s film sister mag Empire. I knew their message “infamy, infamy, they’ve all got it in for me” was uttered by the legendary Kenneth Williams in Carry On Cleo. I sent in a letter and they sent me a t-shirt, which I tended to wear in bed (but you do not want to know any more about that).
As I took on FB&S; I wanted my own spinal message. Unfortunately having no real spine (the mag, although it has been said about me) my message appeared at the bottom of the box on the back that had all the printing and legal stuff in it.
Into this box I slipped in part of a song lyric that mentioned football, or something connected to football.
I kept quiet about it, waiting to see if anyone noticed.
After 13 issues someone finally asked if I would write where these blooming lyrics came from. They had tried to guess, and waited for me to tell them. I never did. So since then I have published the song title and artist the following week.
Being one of those people who has never grown out of making compilation CDs (obviously I am old enough to have made tapes before this) and sometimes on a theme, I did have a list of songs handy when I started. But this only extended to eight that actually mentioned the game in some way. So by issue 9, I had gone to plan B, which was using lyrics from songs that involved NFL towns or nicknames (A New England, The Only Living Boy In New York etc). But then I found a couple more – and people started sending some in.
Issue number 39 has just been published, and I have only had to use six city/nickname link songs – the rest all mention football in some form, and I still have four proper ones in reserve.
It has, as you would expect, become a bit of an obsession – well you would expect it if you knew me.
I have found myself rewinding many songs (do you still rewind a CD) as a snatched lyric has passed me by.
I have gone on to the BBC Listen Again facility because I have heard a song on the radio mention the game, and not known the title.
I have managed to get BBC 6 Music’s own Gideon Coe to mention the words “my collection of NFL songs” on his show – when discussing Jack and Diane.
I have even discussed the matter with Phil Wilding – then produced and co-presenter of BBC 6 Music’s Phill Jupitus Breakfast Show. He, BTW, could not come up with any – although I did put him on the spot, asking out of the blue. However, he pointed me in the direction of the Any Given Sunday soundtrack, which I had not thought of, and that threw up a few.
But, rather worryingly of all, I have taken to sometimes sitting watching TV, with CDs strewn all around me, reading the lyric sheets printed inside. There is another reason for this, an ongoing project I started last year where I am trying to make one CD for each of the 50 states, to send to a couple of friends (My latest release was Thelma and Louisiana). This started simply as song titles, but has morphed into artists from, and song lyrics – mainly because Delaware was not mentioned in any titles of tracks I owned.
I do own, as the official FB&S; wife will confirm, rather a lot of CDs, so there are a lot of lyrics to look at. I have got as far as “W”, but then I keep buying new ones. And unlike the good old vinyl, the print is very small, meaning you cannot read them for too long before your eyes start going a bit fuzzy.
I have, you will be reassured I am sure, not reverted to simply trawling through the vast array of lyrics sheets that are available on the web (although they are useful for confirmation when hearing snatches) – and I do not really want to. There has to a limit to this obsession!
I also have not included any songs from the marvellous (using that word loosely) album NFL Country. I saw this once in the States, and it took on mythical status amongst my friends, to the extent where I began to think I made it up – an album of country stars singing alongside NFL stars could not really exist, surely. But a mention of it in the magazine, and a reader tracked a copy down for me and I am now the proud owner of Two Pairs Of Levis And A Pair Of Justin Boots sung by Toby Keith & Troy Aikman and Too Hip For The Room by Jamie Warren with Chris Mohr & Steve Tasker, amongst others. No – really.
So below are lyrics that mention football in some way. I have not been able to find anywhere else on the web with a similar list, so a first for Football Diner. I have teased you with just the lyric, just to see if you can spot any songs you know, but there is a button that will take you to the titles and artists if you want to go that far.
And if you know of any more please send them to me … I need more, and it may give my eyes a rest.
“But I kick that ball, And I pray it goes straight, If it does, The coach says ‘Good job, number 8’, He doesn’t even know my name is Andre Kristacovitchlalinski, Jr.”
Adam Sandler: “The Lonesome Placekicker” – from 1997 album “What’s Your Name?”
“Jackie’s gonna be a football star, Diane debutante backseat of Jackie’s car”
John Cougar: “Jack & Diane” from 1982 album “American Fool”
“They said I was too little too light weight to play linebacker, so I say I’m playing right-end, wanted to play football for the coach”
Lou Reed: “Coney Island Baby” title track from 1976 album
“Broken beer bottles, Thrown like American footballs”
The Thrills: “Saturday Night” from 2004 album “Let’s Bottle Bohemia”
“I went out for the football team to prove that I’m a man, I guess I shouldn’t tell them that I like Duran Duran”
Barenaked Ladies: “Grade 9” from 1992 album “Gordon”
“He can’t catch a football, Apparently that’s not too cool”
Adam Sandler: “Pickin’ Daisies” from 1997 album “What’s Your Name?”
“Sayin’, “Boxing ain’t to blame, There’s just as much danger in a football game”
Bob Dylan: “Who Killed Davey Moore?” from 1991 “Bootleg Series Volume 1-3”
“See my hound dog bite a rabbit, And my football’s sittin’ on a barbed wire fence.”
Bob Dylan: “Sitting On A Barbed-wire Fence” from 1991 “Bootleg Series Volume 1-3”
“And a little dab’ll do ya, maybe even school ya, I’ll rush your end zone like my man Don Shula”
Fun Lovin’ Criminals: “Smoke ‘Em” from 1996 album “Come Find Yourself”
“Reese Witherspoon, She’s the prom queen, Bill Gates Captain of the chess team, Jack Black the clown, Brad Pitt the quarterback, Seen it all before, I want my money back”
Bowling For Soup: “High School Never Ends” from 2007 album “The Great Burrito Extortion Case”
“Everyone’s the same and on and on / Emerging from the football stands”
Clap Your Hands Say Yeah: “Details Of The War” from their 2005 eponymous album
“Rite up the middle, Touchdown’s and that’s the game, X-tra point and you’re never the same, Tight as a fiddle string, Shot rite thru the brain”
David Lee Roth: “Drop In The Bucket” from 1991 album “A Little Ain’t Enough”v “Sometimes we fight, Sometimes we run, It’s just like playing football (cool guitar bit) with a gun”
Lee Hazelwood: “Baghdad Knights” from 2006 album “Cake or Death”
“I’m buzzin, Dirty Dozen, naughty rotten rhymer, Cursin at you players worse than Marty Schottenheimer”
Eminem: “Just Don’t Give A F—” from 1999 album “The Slim Shady LP”
“The clock’s running down, The team’s losing ground, To the opposing defense, The young quarterback, Waits for the snap, When suddenly it all starts to make sense”
Fountains Of Wayne: “All Kinds Of Time” from 2003 album “Welcome Interstate Managers”
“Runnin through b—– like Emmitt Smith”
RZA : “Mr. Sandman” on Method Man’s 1995 album “Tical”
“So there’s a high school football coach sittin’ on the couch, With a toothpick in his mouth.”
Grandaddy: “Stray Dog And The Chocolate Shake” from 2003 album “Sumday”
“You know I rarely fight, I keep heat plus I’m very nice, I run with two-eighties on me like Jerry Rice”
Wu Tang Killa Beez: “K.B. Ridin” from 2002 album “The Sting”
“Playing on a field of hard times, These struggles are like the yardlines that I gain from”
Jamie Foxx: “Any Given Sunday” from the 2000 OST of that name
“I murder you and laugh, I’m Barry Sanders slashing through the path”
Jedi Mind Tricks: “Heavy Metal Kings” from 2006 album “Servants in Heaven, Kings in Hell”
“I tackle my problems, never run from my foes, Stiff-arm facemask, hit the juke but it didn’t leave a sucka froze”
Outkast: “Sole Sunday” from 2000 “Any Given Sunday” OST
“If you get tired of your football friends, There’s always other boys, There’s always other boyfriends”
The Hold Steady: “You Can Make Him Like You” from 2006 album “Boys And Girls In America”
“T.V. is the place where, armchair generals and quarterbacks can, experience first hand, the excitement of warfare”
The Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy: “Television The Drug Of The Nation” from 1992 album “Hypocrisy Is the Greatest Luxury”
“She wakes in the cold grey dawn, Football games they make me yawn”
Jesse Malin: “Arrested” from 2004 album “The Heat”
“The secret of life is a good cup of coffee, the secret of life is keep your eye on the ball, The secret of life is in Monday night football, and Rolling Stones records, and Mom’s apple pies.”
Gretchen Peters: title track from 1996 album “The Secret of Life”
“He was the pride of the backfield, Ahhh the hero of his day, Yeah he carried the ball for the red and blue, They won District Triple-A, An his name made all the papers, As the best they’d ever had, Yeah so nobody understood it, When the Great Joe Bob went bad”
Terry Allen: “The Great Joe Bob” from 1979 album “Lubbock (On Everything)”
“First and ten, Never run a play again”
Tom Paxton: “You Should Have Seen Me Throw That Ball” from 1972 album “Peace Will Come”
“4th & goal, should I take the 3 point field goal for the score? Or should I roll, around and take the ball up the middle to the gut”
Outkast: “Tomb of the Boom” from 2003 album “Speakerboxx / The Love Below”
“Rows of zeros on a field that’s turning brown, they play baseball, they play football under lights, they play card games and we watch them every night”
Neil Young (and Pearl Jam): “I’m The Ocean” from 1995 album “Mirrorball”
“I think of a mariachi band, I think of 16 and a crisp green football field, I think of the girl I never had”
Lou Reed: “Baton Rouge” from 2000 album “Ecstasy”
“Oh Great Goodman, King of Swingers, Oh Great Bears, and Bulls, Joe Jackson, Oh Great Illinois”
Sufjan Stevens: The Tallest Man, The Broadest Shoulders” from 2005 album “Come On Feel The Illinoise”
“Unless you being evil, then you on the devil’s team, Wide receive what you want to believe … Talk to the coach and break out the huddle”
Outkast: “Church” from 2003 album “Speakerboxx / The Love Below”
“I Introduce, Introduce the invisible juice, I’m snappin Ankles, Breaking Tangles, knockin helmets too. C’mon I will run this town Guaranteed Touchdown.”
Jamie Foxx: “Wily Beaman Song” from 2000 “Any Given Sunday” OST
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