Go Cubs Go (and get a new song)

I got into my temporary replacement Hyundai to head home from work and turned on WGN radio. Almost immediately, I was hearing the tunes of Steve Goodman's "Go Cubs Go," which became the anthem of the 2007 and 2008 Cubs. It struck me that the Cubs "theme" would be getting played in the middle of January, but it turns out that Lou Piniella was about to be interviewed by Steve Cochran.

Lou said everything you would expect him to say:

• Its a shame to lose Kerry Wood and Mark DeRosa, but it was necessary to give the team more depth and athleticism while staying within the budget restraints of a team trying desperately to find a new owner.


• We did our homework on Milton Bradley and he is just a special kid that everyone is really going to like and his switch-hitting balances out the lineup.


• Aaron Miles adds high OBP and speed to the team.


• Kevin Gregg will be a great addition to the bullpen in the late innings.
  

Yada, yada, yada.

I barely paid attention because he just wasn't going to say anything that wasn't a pre-determined answer.

I got caught on "Go Cubs Go."

It really is a lame song. It has a simplistic tune and fairly dumb lyrics with a bit of a catchy beat. Its definitely not something you rock out to on your iPod. It served its purpose well as it got ingrained in our heads as the Cubs victory song, but I think that was more of a Pavlovian response than actual love of the song itself.

After the pain and anger of the last two seasons, I wonder if the fans will be as willing to boogie on down to "Go Cubs Go" this year. The response for me when I heard it was a bit of depression. It brought me back to the place of huge disappointment and despair and I can't see it as a happy song anymore.

Maybe when the season starts and I'm back at Wrigley watching the Cubs win (if the Cubs win), the positivity will come back, but I don't think so. We have been burned twice in a row now by a team that promised the world and then went out and played like they were sponsored by Chico's Bail Bonds. Even those of us who lowered our expectations out of habit were shocked by how horribly they played.

So again, I think a radical change is needed. We need something we can rally behind. Something we can shout from the rooftops in defiance of the baseball gods. The first song I thought of off the top of my head was "We're Not Going to Take It" by Twisted Sister. It is also rather simplistic, but it has the raw anger and defiance that the Cubs and their fans are going to need to bring down the tyrannical and unforgiving baseball gods.

I am not a music guru by any stretch of the imagination so I don't pretend to have the answers, so I'll throw it out there into the ether.

Anybody else have any ideas?