Category Archives: Sports

Inappropriate Walk Up Music 2011

Inappropriate Walk Up Music: “Goodbye Cruel World”

For an intro to this series, click here. For the original series way back in 2009, click here.

One of my collegiate roommates had had an extensive music collection. Most of it fell under the heading of punk, with a particular fondness for Johnny Thunders live bootlegs where poor Johnny was barely coherent. (I remember one that started out with him announcing, in his intensely Elmhurstian accent, “This song goes out ta Yassah Arafat. I heah he’s movin ta Queens.”) But he also had a weakness for doo wop of the late 1950s/early 1960s, the more New York-y the better (think Dion).

In keeping with this latter category, he had a few Billboard compilations from that era. Once, he burst into my room and demanded I listen to a song from the 1961 collection because it was so singularly bizarre: “Goodbye Cruel World” by James Darren.

Mr. Darren was best known as an actor, most notably as Moondoggie in the Gidget movies. He also had a recurring gig on T.J. Hooker. If you’re a nerd of more recent vintage, you may recall him as the holographic crooner Vic Fontaine on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. But he enjoyed a singing career in the early 1960s, and “Goodbye Cruel World” was his biggest hit, charting at #3 on the Billboard Hot 100 for 1961.

The pre-Beatles pop music landscape was really weird. If you weren’t aware of that fact before, you will be now. “Goodbye Cruel World” is a song in which the protagonist uses the titular phrase to signify that he’s “off to join the circus” to be “a broken-hearted clown.”

Let’s review: A song named after a saying that usually means someone is going to kill themselves, weirdly censored to mean the singer is merely becoming a carny, was the third biggest hit in 1961.

The circus milieu of this composition was not subtle, either. The song has blaring carnival horns, booming drums, and calliopes. It’s like “What’s New Pussycat,” only a thousand times less swinging. And I know that if I ever saw a batter come up to the plate to it, I would lose my mind.

Inappropriate Walk Up Music 2011

Inappropriate Walk Up Music: Sanford and Son Theme Song

For an intro to this series, click here. For the original series way back in 2009, click here.

Cliff FloydThis is an example from a real major league batter from a few years ago. When Cliff Floyd first came to the Mets, he would come to bat to hip-hop or R&B, usually pretty standard stuff. But at some point in the 2006 season, he began strolling up from the on deck circle to the theme song from Sanford and Son. (A post from Paul Lukas at Uni Watch from that season corroborates my memory.)

The first time I heard it, I thought it was a mistake, like the Shea Stadium A/V guy hit the wrong cue. That is not a song that signifies a slugger is approaching the plate. It should be played when the opposing team calls a mound conference or boots a grounder.

But no, this was not a mistake. Floyd had quite the sense of humor, even about himself, which is rare for a pro athlete. I remember that when the Sanford theme first became his walk up music, he said it was a reference to his own chronic ankle woes. I couldn’t find any reference to that from 2006, but apparently the joke went back a few years. According to this Cliff-centric web site, way back in 2003 he told MLB.com:

“You see me now,” Floyd said. “I’m like ‘Sanford and Son.’ I can’t run. I’m walking around here like Grady.”

Bless you, Cliff Floyd, one of the few bright spots of the Art Howe years.

Inappropriate Walk Up Music 2011

Inappropriate Walk Up Music: Neil Diamond

For an intro to this series, click here. For the original series way back in 2009, click here.

Neil Diamond is a veritable fount of inappropriate. His unique combination of old-timey showmanship, bombast, and ego is rivaled by few other performers. Witness “Cherry Cherry Christmas,” a Yuletide tune he composed that wishes happy holidays to one and all by namechecking the titles of his own songs. That takes some seriously chrome-plated, sequined balls.

Hot August NightThere’s virtually no Neil Diamond song that wouldn’t be inappropriate for the purposes of walk up music. (How “Sweet Caroline” has become a ballpark sing-along staple, most notably at Fenway, is a mystery to me.) But if I had to pick one–and by the dictates of this series, I do–I’d have to opt for “Porcupine Pie.” This somewhat obscure track, from his 1972 live double-album Hot August Night, is an insanely ridiculous song sung with the utmost sincerity and seriousness. It takes a very special sort of person to play this song in front of an audience and not crack a smile. And to also use the image seen here for the cover of your album.

I would have been blissfully ignorant of this masterpiece were it not for The Best Show on WFMU. Years ago, host Tom Scharpling searched for the worst song ever made. The first candidate was “The Loadout” by Jackson Browne, a truly awful, thoroughly cynical song. (“Here’s a tune about how much we love you slobs in the audience!”) But two years later, “Porcupine Pie” was put forward as far worse, and I can’t disagree. I cede to Tom’s analysis at this time, from the episode from June 25, 2006, as it says far more than I can (and also includes a critique of a song that’s almost as weird, “Done Too Soon”).

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