Songs about sports, any suggestions?

Subject: Songs about sports, any suggestions?
From: musicmick
Date: 13 May 02 - 10:39 PM

On Memorial Day weekend, I shall be attending the Philadelphia Folksong Society's "Spring Thing". One of the campers has requested a workshop featuring songs about sports and I have been asked to run it. Can I get some help, here? I know "Take Me Out To The Ballgame", "Stewball", "Camptown Races" and "You've Got To Be A Football Hero (to get along with the beautiful girls)". I dont think that will be enough to sustain a workshop. I remember a Gene Kelly/Frank Sinatra/Jules Munchen song called "O'Brien to Ryan to Goldberg" but I dont have the words. I suppose I could try to recreate the "Who's on first?" routine, but that would be stretching it.

HELP!

Mike Miller

Subject: RE: Songs about sports, any suggestions?
From: GUEST,ozmacca
Date: 13 May 02 - 10:43 PM

The first thing that springs to mind - try Tom Lehrer's "Fight Fiercely, Harvard"

Subject: RE: Songs about sports, any suggestions?
From: DonMeixner
Date: 13 May 02 - 10:46 PM

Tom Paxton's, "My Favorite Spring"

Subject: RE: Songs about sports, any suggestions?
From: GUEST,ozmacca
Date: 13 May 02 - 10:49 PM

And I suppose, if you run out of songs, you could always play the "Tennis-see Waltz"..... Sorry 'bout that.

Subject: RE: Songs about sports, any suggestions?
From:
Date: 13 May 02 - 10:54 PM

Stompin' Tom Connors wrote the ultimate Hockey Song. HEre are two sites with the song

The Hockey Song
The Hockey Song

Subject: ADD: Joltin' Joe DiMaggio
From: Peter Kasin
Date: 13 May 02 - 11:43 PM

The world's your oyster with sports songs! Baseball in particular has had a history of songwriting about it that goes as far back as the sport itself. The first song about baseball ever published was "The Baseball Polka," in 1858. There are songs written about specific baseball players, such as the 1941 swing number, "Joltin' Joe DiMaggio," about his 56-game hitting streak, recorded by Les Brown. Here are the lyrics:

Joltin' Joe DiMaggio

"Who started baseball's famous streak that's got us all aglow.
He's just a man and not a freak, Joltin' Joe DiMaggio.

Chorus: Joe, Joe, DiMaggio. We want you on our side.

From coast to coast that's all you hear, of Joe the one man show.
He's glorified the horsehide shere, Joltin' Joe DiMaggio
(Chorus)

He'll live in baseball's hall of fame, he got there blow by blow.
Our kids will tell their kids his name, Joltin' Joe DiMaggio."

chanteyranger

Subject: RE: Songs about sports, any suggestions?
From: Devilmaster
Date: 14 May 02 - 12:59 AM

And one that has always been one of my favorites, Steve Goodman's A Dying Cub Fan's Last Request

I'm sure you can find it online somewhere.

Steve

Subject: RE: Songs about sports, any suggestions?
From: ddw
Date: 14 May 02 - 01:09 AM

There are at least three boxing songs I can think of: Paul Simon's "The Boxer," another whose author I don't know called "The Kid's Last Fight" (Frankie Laine sang it) and "Who Killed Davey Moore?"

Should fit right in with the kind of spring we're having here....

cheers,

david

Subject: RE: Songs about sports, any suggestions?
From: Devilmaster
Date: 14 May 02 - 01:18 AM

Sorry for the second post, but I found a website that gives the words and a realplayer version of the full song for A Dying Cub Fan's Last Request

Hope that helps.

Steve

Subject: RE: Songs about sports, any suggestions?
From: Sandy Paton
Date: 14 May 02 - 01:20 AM

Bob Conroy sings "The Day I Played Baseball" on the CD titled Irish in America with Dan Milner (Liam's Brother) and Bob Conroy (Folk-Legacy CD-129). Fun song!

You might enjoy looking up and learning one of the many versions of "Football Crazy" that are available from various sources. These, of course, refer to the game we Americans call soccer. Also, Heidi Muller has a song about baseball on one of her recent CDs.

Sandy

Subject: RE: Songs about sports, any suggestions?
From: Grab
Date: 14 May 02 - 02:08 PM

Songs sung *at* a game are very different though - for rugby for instance, you get half the stadium belting out "Flower of Scotland" and the other half belting out "Swing low sweet chariot" (the songs for Scotland and England respectively). Football (soccer) fans tend to be less inventive though. A typical football chant goes more like "who's the w*nker, who's the w*nker, who's the w*nker in the black" to the tune of the chorus of Men of Harlech, and that's one of the more coherent ones! ;-)

Lots of songs about hunting and fishing - just search Google. The best one has to be Tom Lehrer's Hunting Song - click here for the words. There's plenty of fox-hunting songs available from England, never mind American songs about shooting stuff.

Also quite a lot of songs about hiking (aka "rambling" in England). The Manchester Rambler has some political background (see thread about the Kinder Scout mass trespass), but there's less serious ones too.

Mark Knopfler's got a song Speedway at Nazareth on his latest album (Sailing to Philadelphia) about motorbike racing.

I can point you at a few flying songs/poems written by glider pilots, but they're pretty universally dire. Ah well.

Graham.

Subject: RE: Songs about sports, any suggestions?
From: Grab
Date: 14 May 02 - 02:09 PM

Songs sung *at* a game are very different though - for rugby for instance, you get half the stadium belting out "Flower of Scotland" and the other half belting out "Swing low sweet chariot" (the songs for Scotland and England respectively). Football (soccer) fans tend to be less inventive though. A typical football chant goes more like "who's the w*nker, who's the w*nker, who's the w*nker in the black" to the tune of the chorus of Men of Harlech, and that's one of the more coherent ones! ;-)

Lots of songs about hunting and fishing - just search Google. The best one has to be Tom Lehrer's Hunting Song - click here for the words. There's plenty of fox-hunting songs available from England, never mind American songs about shooting stuff.

Also quite a lot of songs about hiking (aka "rambling" in England). The Manchester Rambler has some political background (see thread about the Kinder Scout mass trespass), but there's less serious ones too.

Mark Knopfler's got a song Speedway at Nazareth on his latest album (Sailing to Philadelphia) about motorbike racing.

I can point you at a few flying songs/poems written by glider pilots, but they're pretty universally dire. Ah well.

Graham.

Subject: RE: Songs about sports, any suggestions?
From: GUEST,Marion
Date: 14 May 02 - 02:20 PM

Stan Rogers wrote a song about hockey; I think it's called "Flying" or some phrase containing the word flying. Actually it's not so much about hockey as it's about kids dreaming of making it and getting out of this town, and high failure rates. Depressing song, really, but it's sporty.

Excerpt:

"I tell them to think of the play and not of the fame
If they've got any future at all it's not in the game
Cause they'll be crippled and starting all over again
Selling on commission, remembering when they were flying,
Remembering dying.

Cause every kid over the boards listens for the sound
The roar of the crowd is their ticket for finally leaving this town
To be just one more hopeful in the Junior A..."

Subject: RE: Songs about sports, any suggestions?
From: TheBigPinkLad
Date: 14 May 02 - 02:20 PM

I've always though that, along with schoolyards, football grounds are where the last vestige of true folk music is to be found. Places where the songs are handed down from season to season and the words change to fit the current situation. Some have been pretty funny too. The first hundred times you hear them that is ... ;o)

Geordie's Penka is about marbles.

Subject: RE: Songs about sports, any suggestions?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 14 May 02 - 02:27 PM

NPR was playing old tunes for this... try their website, there might be files. Old baseball songs, like about Jackie Robinson... float like a butterfly and sting like a bee comes to mind on another tack... Take Me Out To The Ballgame... too obvious?

Subject: RE: Songs about sports, any suggestions?
From: Whistle Stop
Date: 14 May 02 - 03:05 PM

I was going to mention the Steve Goodman song, but a couple of people beat me to it. Another that comes to mind is John Fogerty's "Centerfield"; not exactly a folk song by most definitions, but neither are a number of the songs mentioned here (of course, you could rework it into more of a folk or bluegrass style if you wanted). In the late 1980s I used to play in a band that had a once-a-week gig at a bar right next to Fenway Park in Boston (home of the Red Sox). In the summertime, we would see a huge rush of people coming in the door when the game let out, whereupon we would stop whatever we had been playing and launch into "Centerfield". Win or lose, it helped set the mood.

Subject: RE: Songs about sports, any suggestions?
From: GUEST,chanteyranger
Date: 14 May 02 - 03:23 PM

Typo alert. On my first post, in the second chorus of the DiMaggio song, "shere" should read "sphere."

Subject: RE: Songs about sports, any suggestions?
From: Spartacus
Date: 14 May 02 - 03:25 PM

didnt have time to read all of above, but billy bragg and wilco put music to woody guthries lyric "joe dimaggio done it again" on mermaid avenue 2. It's a great song.

-spartacus

Subject: RE: Songs about sports, any suggestions?
From: greg stephens
Date: 14 May 02 - 04:15 PM

Sporting Life Blues

Subject: RE: Songs about sports, any suggestions?
From: Mr Red
Date: 14 May 02 - 04:25 PM

Pete Coe's song about the ghost of Alderly Edge. opening line ... "You Sporting Men of Chester"

Subject: RE: Songs about sports, any suggestions?
From: MMario
Date: 14 May 02 - 04:27 PM

A SUN VALLEY SONG - a takeoff on the streets of Larado - about skiing.

Subject: RE: Songs about sports, any suggestions?
From: GUEST,Russ
Date: 15 May 02 - 03:09 PM

Mollie and Timbrooks.

Subject: RE: Songs about sports, any suggestions?
From: RoyH (Burl)
Date: 15 May 02 - 03:26 PM

'Football Crazy' is about Gaelic Football, not soccer.

Subject: RE: Songs about sports, any suggestions?
From: musicmick
Date: 15 May 02 - 05:13 PM

I thank you all for your suggestions. I may include cheers. When I was in high school, we reacted to every referee's call against our team with a hearty,"Elevator, Elevator, we got the shaft!"

Mike

Subject: RE: Songs about sports, any suggestions?
From: allanwill
Date: 15 May 02 - 05:53 PM

Mr Red

I'm not sure if I'm mixing two songs up here, but I thought You Sporting Men Of Chester was about "a man named Joseph Baker". In any event, JB was apparently a renowned long distance runner way back when. Kevin Conneff sings the song on one of the Chieftans records.

Allan

Subject: RE: Songs about sports, any suggestions?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 15 May 02 - 06:07 PM

We had a thread about this some time ago that I started. Songs about sporting heroes. If I find it I'll link to it here. But someone else might do it quicker. There were some great songs came up in it, mostly about Hurling and Gaelic Football.

Subject: RE: Songs about sports, any suggestions?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 15 May 02 - 06:12 PM

We had a thread about this some time ago. Songs about sporting heroes. If I find it I'll link to it here. But someone else might do it quicker. There were some great songs came up in it, mostly about Hurling and Gaelic Football.

And here it is after all.

Subject: RE: Songs about sports, any suggestions?
From: 53
Date: 15 May 02 - 07:16 PM

Centerfield by John Fogerty. Its a song about a baseball player wanting to get into the game.

Subject: RE: Songs about sports, any suggestions?
From: Gareth
Date: 15 May 02 - 07:18 PM

"And we were singing Hymns and Arias,
Land of My Fathers, and Sospan Fach

Max Boyce The LP "We all had Doctors Papers"

And as a promise, rather than a threat I'll try and transcibe the words ! Seeing as that I Have my Doctors Papers for the next week (Ear infection - nothing to serious)

Gareth.

PS Overheard in the Olde Royal Oak tonight.

"Now the Rugby is over for the season what are you going to to do ?"

"Support whoever is playing England at Soccer !"

Subject: RE: Songs about sports, any suggestions?
From: GUEST,SueGrif
Date: 15 May 02 - 08:59 PM

Graham Miles from Teesside, UK wrote a wonderful song - about CRICKET! Called One Evening in Summer. It was recorded by the Wilsons

Subject: RE: Songs about sports, any suggestions?
From: artbrooks
Date: 15 May 02 - 09:08 PM

There are probably more verses to this, and I have no idea who wrote it, but here's a start:

THE MOUNTAINBIKER

He was going down the hill, doing 90 miles an hour
When the chain on his mountainbike broke
Now he's sitting on the grass, with the axle up his ass
And his balls doing 60 on the spokes

Subject: RE: Songs about sports, any suggestions?
From: Callie
Date: 15 May 02 - 09:12 PM

Paul Kelly (Australian singer songwriter) has a long song called Bradman which basically goes through his cricketing achievements. The chorus goes:

He was more than just a batsman
He was something like the tide
More than just one man
He was half the bloody side
Fathers took their sons
Because fortune used to ride
In the palm of his hand
In the plam of his hand

Available on the cd "Hidden Things"

regards Callie

Subject: RE: Songs about sports, any suggestions?
From: Bobert
Date: 15 May 02 - 09:17 PM

Now the first song that came to mind was Whistle Stop's John Fogerty's "Centerfield" but then I remenbered Steve Earle's "No. 29" which is a great song that not only talks of sports but life and the natural order of things. It is on his "Exit O" CD and for anyone who has not heard it... it is a treat...

Bobert

Subject: RE: Songs about sports, any suggestions?
From: Hrothgar
Date: 16 May 02 - 04:19 AM

Ted Egan's "The Tiger and the Don" about Bill "Tiger" O'Reilly and Don Bradman.

Jack O'Hagan's "Our Don Bradman."

Mind you, you'll need a good line of patter to put cricket songs over to a Yank audience. Don't even think about Aussie Rules football.

There are a couple of good Australian songs about horse racing, too, but they are about Australian Horse racing. Can dig them out easily.

I'll ask the silly question - when's Memorial Day? I have heard it's the day of the Indy 500, but I don't care about car racing.

Subject: RE: Songs about sports, any suggestions?
From: GUEST,pooby
Date: 16 May 02 - 11:02 AM

Surprised no one's mentioned one of my favorites, Paul Stookey's "Right Field" -- coincidentally, the story of my brief, unremarkable career in Little League. You put the least talented fielder out in right because, as Stookey says, "Little Leagues never have lefties who pull."

FWIW, there's also "Willie, Mickey and the Duke" (by Tommy Hart, I think). Not exactly a folkie, and unfortunately cheapened by the author's frequent bald-faced commercialistic sell-out remakes of the song, but what the hell -- the original is still a good song. Like I said, FWIW.

poobs

Subject: RE: Songs about sports, any suggestions?
From: Mr Red
Date: 16 May 02 - 11:41 AM

alinact
me mix up songs? only when I sing 'em.
But I was rite about the sporting connection. Who's ghost come up from Kelsall Church right down to Helmsby Hill? or whatever.
What about the John Betjamin's lyrics set to a Jim Parker tune about Captain Webb from Dawley - comes wswimming along the old canal that carried the bricks to Lawley...?
FWIW and fttdk Captain Webb was the first man to swim the English channel.

---

Threads combined. Messages below are from a new thread.
-Joe Offer-

Subject: Songs about sports
From: GUEST, music teacher
Date: 10 Nov 11 - 02:11 PM

For an elementary school chorus concert, do you all have any good songs that are about sports? Songs kids can sing, any sport. Thanks!!

Subject: RE: Songs about sports, any suggestions?
From: Joe Offer
Date: 10 Nov 11 - 02:30 PM

Hi, music teacher-
I moved you over here to the existing "songs about sports" thread, and I'm in the process of adding crosslinks (up top) to other threads about sports.
-Joe Offer, Mudcat Archivist-

Subject: RE: Songs about sports, any suggestions?
From: Bert
Date: 10 Nov 11 - 04:15 PM

The Eton Boat Song.

George Formby had one about the TT Races. Here

Subject: RE: Songs about sports, any suggestions?
From: Bert
Date: 10 Nov 11 - 04:17 PM

And The Spinners song "The Happy Absentee" is about Cricket.

I seem to remember a Calypso way backcalled "Cricket, Lovely Cricket"

Subject: RE: Songs about sports, any suggestions?
From: Joe Offer
Date: 10 Nov 11 - 05:06 PM

refresh. We got lots of suggestions in the old thread, but none other than Bert's today. Anyone?

Subject: RE: Songs about sports, any suggestions?
From: Reinhard
Date: 10 Nov 11 - 06:08 PM

As you already mention Bert :-), there is always Bert Lloyd and Ewan MacColl's album Bold Sportsmen All.

Subject: RE: Songs about sports, any suggestions?
From: GUEST,gillymor
Date: 10 Nov 11 - 10:09 PM

Did anyone mention Chuck Berry's excellent song about Jackie Robinson, "Brown-eyed, Handsome Man"?

Subject: RE: Songs about sports, any suggestions?
From: Doug Chadwick
Date: 11 Nov 11 - 02:18 AM

It may not be about a competitive sport , but how about "Messing About on the River".


DC

Subject: RE: Songs about sports, any suggestions?
From: Gda Music
Date: 11 Nov 11 - 11:42 AM

Bert: Calypso serves us well on the sporting front. Apart from many cricket memories to be recalled there have always been other achievements to celebrate in song, boxing and athletics for instance. You mention in this case a real cricket calypso classic, *Victory Test Match* (cricket lovely cricket) from Lord Beginner. YouTube has a brilliantly presented clip of that wonderful occasion from 1950.
http://youtu.be/06P0RdZyjT4

Examples of 2 other cricketing greats

Sir Alec Bedser (Lord Kitchener)   
http://youtu.be/Ccw87t0hbww                                                         
Sir Garfield Sobers (Mighty Sparrow)
http://youtu.be/pBLjxUuzyk

Subject: RE: Songs about sports, any suggestions?
From: GUEST,music teacher
Date: 11 Nov 11 - 12:53 PM

Thanks Joe, for the reposting. I guess the lack of response speaks to the lack of kids' songs about sports, which is probably why I couldn't find any in the first place.

Each year I do a chorus concert with a theme (food, states, hiking/camping,school subjects...)and this year I was thinking sports. But, I think I'd better head in a different direction. So it's on to animals, or maybe trains, or songs that mention people's names, or songs about music...

Subject: RE: Songs about sports, any suggestions?
From: Bert
Date: 12 Nov 11 - 12:42 PM

Definitely not for kids, but there is the Rugby Song "If I was the marrying kind"

Subject: RE: Songs about sports, any suggestions?
From: Bert
Date: 12 Nov 11 - 12:46 PM

And if you consider Horse and Dog Racing to be sports then we have 'Stewball', 'Down the road away went Polly' and 'Master McGrath'

Subject: RE: Songs about sports, any suggestions?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 12 Nov 11 - 04:21 PM

Here's one for a sport that's been neglected in song:

Two thousand and ten was the date of the year,
And the people had gathered from far and from near,
How they stood there and cheered on that bright afternoon
For to watch that great race with the egg and the spoon.

Young Charlie stood ready his spoon in his hand,
With a smile so secure like some king of the land
But Molly stepped forward, and stood on his right,
"With me egg and a spoon, sure I'll give you a fright".

Now they counted to three, and the race was begun,
With their eggs nicely balanced how these champions did run
Says Charlie "You're only a girl, little Moll
You'd much better be skipping or playing with a doll."

But says Molly to Charlie, "It's true I can dance,
But I'm faster than you and you haven't a chance.
I can hop, I can run, I can stand on one leg,
And while I do that, I can balance my egg."

When Charlie heard that then he saw a red mist,
And he stamped on the floor with his hand in a fist,
And the egg he was holding flew into the air,
But he stretched out his spoon and he caught it right there.

Oh the race it went on, and the people they roar,
When they came to the finish, they called it a draw.
But there'll be a rematch when they fix on a day -
When young Charlie has done learning dancing, they say.

Subject: RE: Songs about sports, any suggestions?
From: Mike in Brunswick
Date: 13 Nov 11 - 12:39 AM

If Music Teacher wants a song about sports that also mentions peoples'names, there's always Dave Frishberg's Van Lingle Mungo. The lyrics consist exclusively of the names of major league baseball players, mostly from the thirties and forties. Mungo was a pitcher with the Dodgers.

Mike

Subject: RE: Songs about sports, any suggestions?
From: Mike in Brunswick
Date: 13 Nov 11 - 12:54 AM

Van Lingle Mungo

Mike

Subject: RE: Songs about sports, any suggestions?
From: Dave MacKenzie
Date: 13 Nov 11 - 05:02 AM

Nobody's mentioned Runrig's 'The Clash of the Ash' about shinty, and there's always 'The Gaol of Clonmel' for hurling.

And if you want Cricket, the Kipper Family did a very 'nice' song....

Subject: RE: Songs about sports, any suggestions?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 14 Nov 11 - 12:21 AM

Bold Thady Quill

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Bold Thady Quill,Irish Song Lyrics And Chords written by Sean Gleeson around 1905 and brought back by The Clancys



[C]Ye maids of Dunhallow who're anxious for courting
A [Am]word of ad[Em]vice I will[Dm] give unto[G7] ye:
Pro[C]ceed to Banteer, to the athletic[Am] sporting
And[F] hand in your[C] name to the[G7] club commit[C]tee.
But do not com[Am]mence any[Dm] sketch of your[C] progress
till a[Am] carriage ye see[Em] comin' [Dm]over the[G7] hill,
AndC] down through the valleys and glens of Kil[Am]corney
With that[F] Muskerry[C] sportsman, theG7] bold Thady[C] Quill
cho:[C] For ramblin', for rovin', for football or courtin'
For[Am] drinkin' strong[Em] liquor as[F] fast as you[G7] fill;
In all your[C] days rovin', you'll find none so[Am] jovial
As the[F] Muskerry]C] sportsman, the[G7] bold Thady[C] Quill.

Thady was famous in many other places;
At the athletic meeting held out in Cloghroe
He won the long jump without throwing off his braces
Goin' fifty=four feet every sweep he woultd throw.
At the pullin' o' the weight there was a Dublin man foremost
But Thady outreached and exceeded him still
And around the whole field rang the wild ringing chorus
"Here's luck to our hero! the bold Thady Quill."

At the great hurlin' match between Cork and Tipperary
'Twas played in the park by the banks of the Lee
Our own darlin' boys were afraid of being baten,
So they send for bold Thady to Ballinagree. '
He hurled the ball left and right in their faces
And show'd those Tipp'rary boys learnin' and skill
If they came in this way, shure he surely would brain' em
And the papers full of the praise for Thade Quill.
In the year ninety-one before Parnell was taken,
Thade was outrageously breaking the peace
He got a light sentence for causin' commotion,
And six months hard labour for batin' police.
But in spite of coercion he's still agitatin'
Ev'ry drop of his life's blood he's willing to spill,
To gain for old Ireland complete liberation,
"Till then there's no rest for me" says bold Thady Quill

At the Cork Exhibition there was a fair lady,
Whose fortune exceeded a million or more;
But a bad constitution had ruined her completely,
And medical treatment had failed o'er and o'er.
"Oh Mama" said she, I know what'll cure me
And all me diseases most certainly kill,
Give over your doctors and medical treatment,
I'd rather one squeeze outa bold Thady Quill.

Subject: RE: Songs about sports, any suggestions?
From: breezy
Date: 14 Nov 11 - 06:38 AM

Joe Peel

and a host of Chuck Brodsky songs about baseball, and there's one by Ben Campbell, from Plymouth U K about a young american female Tennis player.