Are You Ready for Some Football? (MP3s)

Here's a neat bit of NFL history:

Are You Ready for Some Football? (MP3s)

September 03, 2008 at 02:50 PM
by Hear It Wow

Whether you're hoping the Browns can earn a playoff spot worthy of their regular season record or still gloating over the New York Giants' Super Bowl upset of the New England Patriots, you're going to like this album. From 1960, the National Football League Marching Band plays the fight songs of the 13 teams that made up the league before the merger.

Television conductor and composer Bernie Green handled the conducting chores for this, which was recorded in an impressive two days. But music isn't the only treat here. Each fight song is introduced by a player for the team, so you'll hear "Dandy" Don Meredith for the Cowboys, Johnny Unitas for the Baltimore Colts, and Bart Starr for the Green Bay Packers. As a bonus, I've included enlargements of the team logos as artwork for the separate tracks.

This is a monaural album that I've duped into left and right channels. For a $1 thrift store find, this one is remarkably clean, with only a couple of pops. In an attempt to recreate the stadium atmosphere, there's crowd noise between all of the tracks. I've put a one-second fade at the start and end of each track so you won't have to hear songs from teams you root against, though you really want to give the whole thing a listen.

1. Hooray for Mr. Football (1:58)
2. Hi-O Hi-O for Cleveland (1:44)
3. Touchdown (2:11)
4. The Eagles' Victory Song (1:53)
5. Pittsburgh Steelers Fight Song (1:44)
6. The Cardinals Are Charging (1:40)
7. Hail to the Redskins (2:32)
8. Let's Go You Colts (1:54)
9. Bear Down Chicago Bears (1:55)
10. Go Dallas Cowboys (1:48)
11. Gridiron Heroes (1:42)
12. Go! You Packers Go! (1:36)
13. The Ram's Marching Song (1:49)
14. Football Polka (1:55)

As I wrote in the comments, the song listed above for the Cowboys isn't the official fight song:

With all due respect to Mr. Meredith, #10 was never Dallas' real fight song. You can hear the real one (and read the lyrics) at:

"Go You Dallas Cowboys, Go!"

Longtime Cowboys fans will recognize this as the theme used by Coach Landry for his weekly show back in the late 60s and early 70s, before he used "Fanfare for the Common Man".

As much as I like "Fanfare", I wish Coach Landry had kept the official fight song. For that matter, I wish Jerry would bring back "Cowboy Joe" (the Cowboy logo on the LP cover) -- "Rowdy" is horrible and that abomination "Huddles" was even worse.

I think you'll agree that the real song beats the LP's song -- its really no contest.