{"id":6572,"date":"2012-08-20T07:31:41","date_gmt":"2012-08-20T12:31:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.net\/?p=6572"},"modified":"2012-08-20T07:31:41","modified_gmt":"2012-08-20T12:31:41","slug":"on-the-need-for-a-nationals-novelty-song","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/?p=6572","title":{"rendered":"On the Need for a Nationals Novelty Song"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I grew up a Chicago Cubs fan.  The Cubbies are still my first love, though when I moved to Maryland six years ago I adopted the Nats as my local team (passing over the closer O&#8217;s) because the Nats needed the love.  The Cubs have given me many things over the years &mdash; they&#8217;ve given me hope, they&#8217;re broken my heart, they&#8217;ve taught me patience.<\/p>\n<p>And they&#8217;ve given me novelty songs.  Steve Goodman&#8217;s &#8220;Go Cubs Go.&#8221;  Eddie Vedder&#8217;s &#8220;All the Way.&#8221;  The first, a rousing song written about the 1984 team.  The last, a melancholy song about the travails of the long-suffering Cubs fan.  Inspiring songs.  Even beloved songs.  Songs that speak to being a fan.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"420\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/A9XtDyDUjIU\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"420\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/1A-4vy_m4DM\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>The Nats haven&#8217;t given me those things yet.  Exciting baseball, yes.  A gorgeous stadium, yes.  Teddy, absolutely.  But I have to ask.  Where&#8217;s the Nationals&#8217; novelty song?<\/p>\n<p>Where&#8217;s the song that personifies Nationals fandom?  Where&#8217;s the song that encapsulates the season?  Where is &#8220;Go Nats Go&#8221;?<\/p>\n<p>I don&#8217;t know what the song would be.  A song about Strasburg&#8217;s arm, Harper&#8217;s eye black, Werth&#8217;s beard, Clippard&#8217;s specs, and Teddy&#8217;s futility would be good for <i>this<\/i> season, but perhaps the song should be something timeless, in the way that &#8220;Go Cubs Go&#8221; is timeless.<\/p>\n<p>Nor do I know the local DC music scene well enough to take a guess at who would write such a novelty song.  I started thinking about this last night on Twitter, but the bands that came to mind probably wouldn&#8217;t work &mdash; or be interested.  (However, I suggested Carbon Leaf on Twitter, and <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/carbonleaf\/status\/237521714551066624\">they weren&#8217;t dismissive of the idea<\/a>.) <\/p>\n<p>That&#8217;s the trouble with writing a Nationals song.  A Cubs song makes sense because there&#8217;s a long-established (and long-suffering) fanbase and being a Cubs fan <i>means<\/i> something.  There are no natural Nats fans, the team&#8217;s too young and the fan-suffering too shallow.<\/p>\n<p>Still, I&#8217;d love a Nationals song for this season.  Natitude need a novelty song.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I grew up a Chicago Cubs fan. The Cubbies are still my first love, though when I moved to Maryland six years ago I adopted the Nats as my local team (passing over the closer O&#8217;s) because the Nats needed the love. The Cubs have given me many things over the years &mdash; they&#8217;ve given<a class=\"more-link\" href=\"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/?p=6572\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">&#8220;On the Need for a Nationals Novelty Song&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[4081,24],"class_list":["post-6572","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-baseball","tag-baseball","tag-washington-nationals","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6572","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6572"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6572\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6572"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6572"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6572"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}