The Monday Night Football song makes me want to saw my head off. Okay. This is one of the worst attempts at musical interpretation that I have ever heard in my life. This was the season that I finally decided to start understanding the game, because, just why not? One of my friends is a huge fan, and feeds me well enough to make showing up for the games worthwhile. And it turns out that I really should have checked it out all along. Sure, there's a game, but there is also cheesy dip, seriously...It's a purely social event, on many levels. The NFL opener was a cavalcade of cheesier-than-the-dip entertainment wonderfulness, the Superbowl is all about the commercials and EVEN CHEESIER DIP, and what with the replays, the players introducing themselves all dramatically, the snazzy graphicsc, cutaways and commentary, it's sort of like a reality show that happens to feature lots of men in tight pants.
I knew I might be catching on when I heard myself yelling "SANTANA WAS ROBBED" after a particularly dicey play during last week's Redskins game. "WHO ARE YOU?" I asked myself, immediately, mouth full of cheese and chips. "Apparently, I am multi-faceted," I responded. "Shut it."
And this, of course, opens up a whole new world for me to form opinions and make pronouncements about. Hello - this is why I live. And there is still the matter of this dreadful "SONG". This 2002 U.S. Today article reports: "That year the Los Angeles Times ranked the "Bottom Ten" lowlights from two decades of Monday Night Football. The "grating theme song ... howled by Hank Williams Jr." was No. 10 — in its rookie year."
Seriously. First of all, he looks like he's been sitting in that truck from the introduction for the last 30 years, mainlining Bud bottles and smoking unfiltered Camels. This is possible, of course. His song has been used by the NFL for SIXTEEN years, during which time Hank hasn't had to live solely off of the royalties for his original "Bocephus" work, and he's even won like four or five Emmy awards. Please! I guess it pays to make and play music that makes people want to rip their ears off. It's genius advertising really - a basic question: are these people ready for some football? Of COURSE they are. Football fans are ALWAYS ready for some FOOTBALL. And they also, typically, like to scream, so Hank's voice doesn't sound much different.
There are reasons to love Hank, however...just ask him. And I guess I can't have much of a beef with the guy who sang "Family Tradition" - the song for many a drunken college singalong - even if this football song totally sucks.
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