Tyler Clark presents: Local Mythologies writesTop Five: Songs About Football

Thanks to two decades as the theme of Monday Night Football, Hank Williams, Jr.'s NFL-centric remake of "All My Rowdy Friends Are Coming Over Tonight" remains the most recognizable song about football not called "The Super Bowl Shuffle." America, we can do better. In honor of football season, here are five superior songs about the gridiron, and all of the promise and peril it contains.



1) Pavement, "Lions (Linden)" (1992)

The Linden Lions are real. They play football in California's tiny Mother Lode League, facing off against teams from other farm towns irrigated to life by the reservoirs of the Central Valley. Stephen Malkmus attended high school in nearby Lodi, balancing his slacker whateverness with a red-blooded love of sports. Both aspects of his personality come out in this track from 1992's Watery, Domestic. The freak in Malkmus criticizes the usual targets: small-town provincialism, civic mismanagement, the rah-rah that fills stands and funnels money to booster clubs while the surrounding infrastructure decays. Despite all that, the fan wins out. Malkmus understands the escapist appeal of autumn weekends spent sitting in a rickety stadium, rooting for the kids from the next county over to get their teeth kicked in.

2) The Mountain Goats, "Fall of the Star High School Running Back" (2002)

In John Darnielle's world, achieving on-field heroics is secondary to learning how to come down gracefully from the pedestal of temporary glory. Unfortunately for this song's titular running back, John Darnielle's world also has ten times as many cautionary tales as it does success stories. In just under two minutes, William Staniforth Donahue and his blown-out knee go from end zone to prison, done in by a mixture of boredom, drug deals, and mandatory minimums. The story is depressing, familiar, and written in the heat of suburban dread that permeates 2002's All Hail West Texas, the first true concept album from an artist now renowned for them.

3) Ten Yard Fight, "First and Ten" (1995)

During a 1995 interview about the straight-edge scene on Boston's WBZ, Ten Yard Fight's Anthony Pappalardo told the well-meaning presenter "we have a message we want to get through, and we put it in down-to-earth, simple language so the kids can understand it." In the case of the band's earliest demos, that simple language took the form of football metaphors. Occasionally clad in custom jerseys, Ten Yard Fight lured young Pats fans back to the drug-free life by drawing parallels between the straight-edge commitment and the us-against-the-world bond of loyalty found in the locker room. By the time of Hardcore Pride, the band had abandoned the football motif for more serious-minded lyrics, but they left behind a durable analogy.
 

4) Bobby Bare, "Drop Kick Me, Jesus (Through The Goalposts of Life)" (1976)

Decades before Ten Yard Fight used football jargon to keep kids out of bars, songwriter Paul Craft used it to lead people into church. On what the internet calls "the world's only Christian football waltz," journeyman country crooner Bobby Bare looks for answers on every page of the heavenly playbook, even going so far as to request blocking help from the souls of his deceased relatives. Most of his entreaties go to Jesus, who, true to His humbleness, assumes the role of a celestial Garo Yepremian rather than a glory-hogging quarterback. Although this 1976 single probably didn't save many souls, it did earn Craft a Grammy nomination (and gave fans something to hum every time their teams faced a do-or-die field goal).

An earlier version of this list appeared on Mixographic in 2009.

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