Hank Williams Jr. wins the clueless musician of the year award, getting huffy and deciding to pull his song off the air, after ESPN reacted predictably to his Obama-Hitler commentary. Maybe he doesn’t remember the shape his career was in before MNF breathed new life into his music, and approximately a bajillion people into his fanbase. Maybe he forgot how criminally easy it was to staple the line “Are you ready for some Football!” onto his old jukebox semi-hit of the 80s, “All My Rowdy Friends (Are Coming Over Tonight).”
That said, it was a pretty perfect tune for the occasion. Before the MNF franchise, Monday nights were a depressing reminder of how un-weekend your week had become. But with a single football game under prime-time lights, America had a little bowl game each and every week. More importantly, red-blooded beer-drinking football fans had an excuse to bring your buddies over to the man cave, or to a friendly sports bar, and escape the drudgery of the weeknight life.
That said, how hard can it be to find a replacement? We don’t need anyone to write a new song, we just need to take an old semi-forgotten chestnut, dust it off, and rewrite the chorus to make it vaguely football-themed.
Thanks to our corporate espionage division, we were able to capture real proposals made in the inner sanctum of the NFL’s marketing department as they try and replace this iconic anthem. Some notes, from the corporate memo:
Restrictions: The performer should still be alive, so they can actually perform the song. If we had a full offseason to work with, CGI would be an option, for you out-of-the-box thinkers. It would help if they were semi-broke and desperate, so that we can sign a much friendlier artist’s agreement and take full ownership of the song, even if the Fox News cameras strike again.
Hank Williams III: Gettin’ Drunk and Fallin’ Down
http://youtube.com/watch?v=6_RQil_EvUQ?wmode=Opaque
The Pitch: The Hank Williams franchise has done well by Monday Night Football, so why not reach into the next generation of Williamses, to reach the next generation of football fans? So far he has yet to catch lightning in a bottle in the form of a hit single, so we just reached into his catalog at random and came up with something that seems representative of his body of work.
The Problem: We might need some help with rewrite here, but surely the sins of the father aren’t passed down to the son. What’s that? They are? Even more so? Jeez, these Hanks just don’t know how to act, do they.
Status: Rejected.
2 Live Crew, f. Luther Campbell: Hey, We Want Some [Football]!
The Pitch: The secret to the success of Hank Jr’s iconic song lay in its anthemic opening line. No one outside of his hardcore fans can tell you more than two lines of his song: “Are you ready for some football!” and “(something something) Monday Night!”
Well, if you’re looking for an opening shout that can get the party atmosphere started, look no further than the 1980’s Miami shock-rap giants, Luther Campbell and 2 Live Crew. Their song “Hey, We Want Some [redacted]” became the barbaric yawp of frat guys and night life partiers everywhere. Now that those partiers and frat guys are grown up, we’ll hit them right in the nostalgia bone (connected directly to the hip pocket and its bulging wallet) with this oldie but goodie.
The Problem: Campbell is unfavorably tied to the recruiting scandals that rocked the NFL’s unofficial 33rd team at the University of Miami. Also, all those grown-up fratboys are still major douchebags.
Status: Rejected.
Spinal Tap: Tonight I’m Gonna Rock You (Tonight)
http://youtube.com/watch?v=6gESFElAOpQ?wmode=Opaque
The Pitch: One of the big selling points of the Monday Night Football experience is the “now” factor, the “event” that makes people make plans or change plans for their evening, in order to watch it. Our advertisers love the fact that people strap in for the long haul of these games, because they know people will be talking about it at work the next day.
Key words like “Here” and “Now” and “Live” and “Tonight” emphasize the immediacy of the event, and help viewers at home celebrate the fact that they made it. So why not double down on that verbal bet, with one of the most rockin’ songs of the head-banging era, courtesy of Spinal Tap? They may be Brits, but they know how Americans like to rock.
The Problem: production could be a challenge. Something always seems to be going wrong in their stage performances. I don’t know if it’s a curse or what.
Status: Rejected.
MGMT: Time To Pretend
The Pitch: Okay, we’re going bleeding-edge here, like those car commercials these days filled with hipster earworms that program them to buy Priuses and SmartCars and whatnot. And we’re doing it with a song that celebrates the vibrant youth of the league, and its next generation of stars. Consider these opening lyrics:
I’m feeling young / I’m feeling tough / I’m in the prime of my life
Let’s [play some football] / make some money / find some models for wives
There’s an immediacy here, a now factor, a chance to hit people with something at once familiar and new and a little surprising.
The Problem: What are those, keyboards? Get the hell out of here with that. This is America, dammit!
Status: Rejected.
Mastodon: Mother Puncher
The Pitch: I don’t know if you’ve been watching football lately, but I have and one thing seems clear to me: the future of the sport is all about robots. Fighting robots. Fox is three steps ahead of the game here, as usual, with their animatronic robot mascot, and cyborg Howie Long in the studio. Gentlemen, here at ESPN we are unaccountably falling behind in the Robot Wars.
Musically, we need to step outside the box. We need to stop thinking of things like “lyrics” and “melody” and “presentation.” We need pure face-melting awesomeness performed with inhuman brutality. And if you need to sell it, hire Hugh Jackman to dance around and do karate moves. Personally, I can’t make heads or tails of it, but the kids seem to love him.
The Problem: We might actually kill people with too much awesomeness before the game even starts. Check with legal to see if face-melted corpses who don’t change the channel still count in our Nielsen stats.
Status: In Legal
Note: As of press time, the NFL had still not chosen a final replacement. Feel free to suggest your own possibility.
