The One Song You Won’t Hear at Fenway Park

fenway park

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Since forever, baseball stadiums have had their own unique and iconic musical traditions.

At Wrigley Field, Chicago Cubs fans are treated to “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” during the seventh inning stretch. 90 miles north…Milwaukee Brewers faithful (is there such a thing?) zing boom tararrel their way through “The Beer Barrel Polka”.

For some reason, Fenway Park has two. Boston fans get “Sweet Caroline” every night and, following a victory…“Dirty Water”.

But there’s one song Red Sox DJ TJ Connelly absolutely won’t play.

“You know what I hate playing…‘Seven Nation Army’ [by The White Stripes],” Connelly recently told The Hall of Very Good Podcast. “I was working at Boston College doing music for their hockey team and the [pep band] insists on playing ‘Seven Nation Army’ for every single whistle during a penalty. So it’s ‘Seven Nation Army’ over and over and over again. It just broke me.”

In 2006, the Grammy Award winner was seemingly adopted as “the unofficial anthem of soccer”. It would end up being played during every game of the 2008, 2012 and 2016 Euro Cup and, eventually…everywhere else.

“What thrills me the most,” Jack White said about the song’s popularity, “is that people are chanting a melody, which separates it from chants like ‘Thank God I’m a Country Boy’ and ‘We Will Rock You’ and many of the most popular songs where large groups tend to clap or sing words and not just notes.”

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(Download The Hall of Very Good Podcast over on iTunes)

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