Today is Super Bowl Sunday! Thus, I am sure you think that most significant football-related thing you will do today will be to watch the NFL championship game between the New England Patriots and the Philadelphia Eagles. You’d be wrong, though!
The most important thing you’ll do today is listen to “San Diego Super Chargers,” the disco fight song for the Chargers. Behold its glory in the YouTube video above. And for good measure, play it one more time again.
Perhaps, you previouslyhad a limited worldview. Perhaps, you thought all sports fight songs were marches with lyrics about “fighting on” and such. Go and listen for a third time, and realize how wrong your assumptions about fight songs had been.
When I was in college, my favorite professional football team was the Washington Redskins. But my second favorite was the Chargers, exclusively because of this song. They remained my #2 favorite until this past season, when they moved to Los Angeles, rendering this song a mere artifact.
Here are my top 5 favorite things about this song:
5. The Wikipedia Article. It’s surprisingly in-depth, and it includes Bill Belichick’s review: “I hate that song.”
4. The song is credited to “Captain Q.B. and the Big Boys,” which aren’t actually a band. The song was recorded by some session performers, and Jerry Marcellino, the producer and songwriter, gave them a fake artist name.
3. The horn line that opens the song. Say what you will about the cheesiness of the rest of the song, but that brass riff slays.
2. The lyrics. They seem to be written by someone who has never watched professional football. They talk about “shooting for number one,” but there are no rankings in the NFL. “All we seek is the goal line to victory” sounds like somebody told the writer to include the word “goal line” somewhere. It makes no sense. And other than that, there’s not a football-specific reference in the whole song. It just talks about the team’s “super play”
1. The chorus. Obviously. It’s so joyous and frisky. I love everything about it: The way the singer pronounces “sup-ah chah-gahs.” The way he drops the second “super” for a dramatic pause. And the last percussive “charge!” to round things out. It’s beautiful.
Note: This song is not on Spotify, so is not on my playlist!
Click here for the full list
