Tag Archives: fleetwood mac

Inappropriate Walk Up Music: 04.02.09

santo-shea.jpgFor previous Inappropriate Walk Up Music posts, click here.

Every day until Opening Day, Scratchbomb presents three tunes that are completely, unequivocally inappropriate for use as major league walk-up
music.

These are not necessarily bad songs–although that
certainly helps. They are merely songs that don’t evoke the fear and dread one traditionally associates with the walk-up song. In fact, they evoke the exact opposite.

Imagine yourself in the on-deck circle. Bottom of the 9th. Down by one. Man on second, two out. You hear the PA system blare, The centerfielder, number 20… The crowd roars at the sound of your name. And as you stroll to the batter’s box, you are greeted with the strains of one of these songs:

Today I present a Super Sounds of the 70s post. All told, the 70s don’t bug me. In fact, I think if I had to pick between the 70s and 80s as a cultural whole (and couldn’t cherry pick a band from decade one and a book from decade two, etc.), it’d be a close call.

But there’s one aspect of 70s culture that always drove me nuts. It’s that “hey man, just take it easy!” attitude that pervades so many of the songs. Even songs that purport to rock are rocking around the concept of havin’ a good time and takin’ her easy. I don’t know if this came from a post-Watergate, post-Vietnam desire to tune out the world, or it was just the massive amounts of weed being smoked at the time, but there was a lot of 8-track tape committed to telling America to chillax.

* “Take it Easy”, Eagles
Is it cliche to hate the Eagles by now? I don’t care. At the risk of sounding like every other jackass who quotes The Big Lebowski, I hate the fucking Eagles. Ironic that they’d write so many songs about takin’ it easy, since by the end of the decade, they were doing enough blow to support the Bolivian economy single-handed, and only speaking to each other through legal teams.

* “Rock’n Me”, Steve Miller Band
Steve Miller wrote some oppressively stupid lyrics. I dare you to look at the lyrics to any of his songs written down and not laugh. But be warned: The exercise may shave a few points off your IQ.

But if I have to pick one Steve Miller hit for maximum idiocy, this one takes the cake (don’t know about his album tracks–bet there’s some real doozies in there). If you tried to write a thoroughly retarded rock song, you couldn’t come up with a better example than this. Real Stupid beats Fake Stupid every time.

* “Rhiannon”, Fleetwood Mac
I am neither here nor there on Fleetwood Mac. But the mental image of someone coming up to bat to this song amuses me. Especially if the batter had his Louisville Slugger draped in scarves, Stevie Nicks-style.