9/16/16: Carrie Underwood and the Importance of the Pregame Pump-Up Jam
Sunday night, as millions of New England fans huddled around their TV sets ready to bite their nails and throw things in case Jimmy Garoppolo’s maiden voyage as a pro quarterback resulted in a sinking ship, I couldn’t help but anticipate the debut of Carrie Underwood’s retooled Sunday Night Football theme.
I get it — the Pats were on the road against one of the best teams in the league. Season opener. No Gronk. No Brady. Why worry about Carrie freakin’ Underwood?
Because the music that frames the experience of Sports On TV is important to me, OK? And I think, unless you hit the “mute” button, it’s important to you, too. It sets the stage, evokes emotion, and often times, it gets tied up in the memory of a season, a game, or a particular moment in time.
Not to mention, come 8:30 on a Sunday night, I’m a mere eight-and-a-half hours away from waking up to another hellish commute via a public transportation system that apparently predates the American Revolution. I have a right to enjoy the soundtrack to my final hours of sanity.
Plus, the previous one sucked.
When NBC took over the Sunday night package in 2006, they tapped Pink, who probably gets my vote as the best female pop vocalist (I mean, honestly) to deliver a football-themed interpretation of Joan Jett’s “I Hate Myself for Loving You.” It was OK, not great — my guess is, either way, the meat and potatoes SNF viewer couldn’t handle an ass-kicker like Pink, so starting in ’07 we got Faith Hill and her eight million mile long legs for six seasons.
Hill didn’t do anything that offended the senses — under her stewardship, the SNF open was more post-Shania Nashville than CBGB, but it worked. Then, in 2013, Hill left, and tagged in the eager rookie Underwood.
No disrespect to Underwood as a singer (she does a mean rendition of “Alone” by Heart ), but that’s when the SNF theme went off the rails: Jett’s melody trampled by vocal runs, unnecessary key changes, and “oh, what the heck,” vague patriotic references because Football Is America. Whoever the Max Martin of country music is, it sounded like that guy got his hands on it, some Nashville Wesley Willis pressing the “Country” button on a Casio Keyboard and telling Underwood to belt it out and see what happens.
Mute button.
Not to mention, they took out possibly the best lyric: “The last one standing gets to turn out the lights.” Reminiscent of Dandy Don, what better encapsulates the Sunday Night Football experience, particularly in the 2010s, with three-and-a-half hour games leaving bedrooms across America illuminated until somebody fumbles for the clicker?
And then, Sunday night.
Take “We Will Rock You” –esque drums, add in lyrics that actually make sense and a psyched-up Underwood (using a version of her own duet with Miranda Lambert, 2014’s “Somethin’ Bad”) bounding across the screen, and there’s more than enough energy here to get me ready for some football. I love the new theme. Been humming it for days.
The only misstep:
First Day at the Internship Eli Manning makes an appearance. They just had to throw a Manning in there. Other than that (well, and the shameless Verizon honking), it’s perfect.
What was the line — “just when I think you couldn’t possibly be any dumber, you go and do something like this — AND TOTALLY REDEEM YOURSELF.”
Carrie Underwood now OWNS the pregame pump-up jam.
This post was originally published to macandgu.com on September 16, 2016.
