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Tuesday, July 8, 2008
Musical Baseball
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
It’s not just “Take Me Out to the Ball Game.” Baseball and music have a longstanding relationship. Though it wasn’t recorded back when Woody Guthrie wrote it in 1949, “Joe Dimaggio Done It Again” was finally recorded by Wilco and Billy Bragg on “Mermaid Avenue II” in 2000. Vocal group the Treniers had a 1954 hit with “Say Hey (The Willie Mays Song),” which included some dialogue from the great New York Giants outfielder.
Today, a group of musicians, including Peter Buck and longtime R.E.M. sideman Scott McCaughey, released “Volume 1: Frozen Ropes and Dying Quails” under the name “the Baseball Project, paying tribute to the game and some of its notable players. Here are a few more of our favorite baseball-related tunes:
“The Greatest” - Kenny Rogers
“Centerfield” — John Fogerty
“Swing” - Trace Adkins
“Cheap Seats” - Alabama
“Paradise by the Dashboard Light” - Meat Loaf (including the voice of Phil Rizzuto)
“A Dying Cub Fan’s Last Request,” “When the Cubs Go Marching In” and “Go, Cubs, Go” - Steve Goodman
“Catfish” - Bob Dylan
“Cubs in Five” - The Mountain Goats
“Tessie” - Dropkick Murphys
“Walter Johnson” - Jonathan Richman
“Piazza, New York Catcher” by Belle and Sebastian
“Mrs. Robinson”— Simon and Garfunkel (“Where have you gone Joe DiMaggio…”)
“Don’t Ruin It for the Rest of Us” — Joe Nichols (in this one, the narrator is sitting in a bar watching the Braves)
And Wisconsin-born Atlanta resident and acclaimed folk troubadour John McCutcheon recently released “Sermon on the Mound,” an entire album dedicated to baseball. You can catch McCutcheon live at Eddie’s Attic in Decatur on July 11 and at the Crimson Moon in Dahlonega on July 12.
One that hasn’t been released yet: “The Negro Leagues Anthem” by Bone Thugs-N-Harmony is scheduled to be part of a CD tribute to the Negro Leagues sponsored by the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum. They’re hoping to release it sometime this summer.
Did we miss your homerun hit? Tell us some of your favorite baseball songs.
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