Category Archives: Sports

Inappropriate Walk Up Music: Chicago

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

In the mid-80s, Chicago released roughly 8,000 ballads, usually for movie soundtracks, each one identical to the last. One of my most hated sounds in music is the Chicago Ballad Drum Sound: one beat per measure, on a 300-feet wide snare drum sitting at the bottom of an abandoned well.

Any of these would be thoroughly inappropriate as walk up music. However, I’m going to take the suggestion of @TurnpikeTony on Twitter and opt for “Along Comes a Woman.” Because it is a rare example of Chicago of this era trying to “rock,” which is worse. And also because it might be accompanied by this video.

Inappopriate Walk Up Music: Randy Newman

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

I think Randy Newman is inappropriate in any context. His voice drives me bonkers and all of this songs sound the same to me. All plinkety, Western saloon piano with a warmed over boogie beat. It makes my teeth hurt just to think of it.

When I was in high school, I went to book signing for John Cleese, and was lucky enough to get him to sign my copies of both the Monty Python scripts and the complete Fawlty Towers scripts (/ brag). There was a Q&A session, and some random fan asked him what kind of music he liked, for some reason. Cleese looked a bit puzzled, and responded that he didn’t listen to music all that often because he usually didn’t find it preferable to silence. But if he did listen to music, it was liable to be Bach or Randy Newman.

That response almost made me rethink my love for the man. But I looked past it, because love is deeper than that. After all, he’s spent pretty much his entire adult life writing and performing comedy, going back to his college days, so the guy hasn’t had much time to listen to music. Still, c’mon John.

Newman’s most famous tune, “Short People,” might be the most inappropriate Randy Newman tune of all, for many reasons. In retrospect, it seems insane that the song was not only released, but became an enormous hit. It’s one thing for him to compose a song full of hate (ironic or not). It’s another for everyone to decide to buy it. Not cool, people of the late 1970s. Then again, what do I expect from people who thought avocado was a good color for appliances?

Of course, if David Eckstein finds his way onto a major league roster this season, “Short People” would transform from inappropriate to mandatory.

Inappropriate Walk Up Music: Klaus Nomi

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

Can you imagine a slugger striding to the plate as Klaus Nomi’s falsetto tremble warbled out of the PA speakers? No, you cannot, because that would be insane. What could possibly better than seeing a batter leave the on deck circle to the strains of a Germanic operatic effeminate clown in an oversized pleather tuxedo? Nothing, except if a batter came to the plate dressed like Klaus Nomi. Then, the world itself might end from an overdose of amazing.