Making 'Meet The Mets' seem charming and relevant
The New York Mets have a new theme song, whose chorus lyrics should be changed to "Our Theme Wastes Your Time."
Here are the lyrics, in case you don't want to rot your brain with the "music":
New York Mets! Our team, our time!
Our team, our time!
We get the hits! Echoey bat crack! (Hits!)
We score the runs! (Runs!)
We shut you down! (Down!)
We're number one! (One! One! One!)
Crowd cheers mixed into this chorus:
New York Mets! Our team, our time! Echoey bat crack!
New York Mets! Our team, our time! Echoey bat crack!
New York Mets! Our team, our time! Echoey bat crack!
New York Mets! Our team, our time!
Our team, our time!
Pedro Martinez
Will strike you out.
Billy Wagner, comin' through
He's throwin' heat, no doubt.
David Wright, Jose Reyes
Makin' sure you're not safe.
Just in case, Carlos Delgado --
He's at first base.
Cliff Floyd, Carlos Beltran
Playin' the outfield.
Come to Shea Stadium
Our team's the real deal! Bizarre, clipped bat-crack sound!
Crowd cheers mixed into this chorus:
New York Mets! Our team, our time!
New York Mets! Our team, our time!
Our team, our time!
Some thoughts:
1. I'm guessing this song was recorded by Technotronic back in 1991 and they brought in a new vocalist to spit out these tight rhymes.
2. The award for best unfinished lyric has to go to "Just in case, Carlos Delgado -- He's at first base." This could have been corrected by changing the word "he's" to "is," but that would have sounded smooth and made sense. The existing version of this stanza just makes me think that the songwriters had plans of a sweeping soliloquy about Delgado's prowess in times of struggle, only to realize that they had four beats to cut to the chase. Good job.
3. My favorite use and manipulation of a sound effect is the clipped bat-crack just before the final chorus, perhaps used to distract you from how bad the previous verse was. It's like someone in the studio sat on the pause button on the mixing board, then got up and sat down instantly in the hope that he'd minimize the damage.
4. The one smart thing these knuckleheads did was avoid having a player's name be part of the rhyme scheme. That way, if Pedro Martinez starts beaning batters in the head on 9 consecutive pitches and the team lets him go, they can just as quickly dub Tom Glavine's name in there and the crappy anthem will remain intact.
5. I'm curious to see what clever/rejected rhyme schemes would have been in play if Chris Benson were still with the team.
What is it with awful theme songs for pro teams? Can't club execs just sign a fan from the industry to record an anthem every year? Get Paul McCartney to write a song for the Yankees, with Bernie Williams on guitar, and reunite New Kids On The Block to perform a song about the Red Sox.