For the original Inappropriate Walk Up Music post, 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:
* “Invisible Touch”, Genesis
Phil Collins is an example of an artist with an entire oeuvre that’s inappropriate for use as walk up music, with the possible–POSSIBLE–exception of “In the Air Tonight” (not that the Peter Gabriel-led version of Genesis would be any better; I doubt any batter would opt for “The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway”). I have a self-imposed rule for this project that I won’t select the same artist twice, but I may just have to violate it, because I can think of about 1200 Phil Collins songs that crack me up in this context.
* “Careering”, Public Image Ltd.
I guess anything from the super-dubby Jah Wobble-era PiL would qualify, but I find this song particularly creepy. But not in a way that would intimidate the pitcher. I imagine that if this song were played over a stadium PA, everyone in the crowd would feel weird and wrong and want to leave as soon as possible.
* “Poison Arrow,” ABC
This songs gets played a lot on an 80s/90s “modern rock” music channel on Time Warner Cable. It came on as I “watched” it last night, and immediately said to The Wife that it would be a good song to include here. She countered by wondering how it would sound as a merengue song–would that spice it up enough for the likes of, say, Jose Reyes? For the next 15 minutes, we riffed on this idea. The details are way too stupid to share, but I remember assigning the synth part to a seven-piece horn section, which would also sing the chorus. And there would be a four minute trombone solo.