NBA and Music: My Personal Story
I read Trey Piscitelli’s Ultimate Sixers Preseason Playlist this week (If you haven’t, please do yourself a favor). The hammer on Trey’s list is aptly “Here Come the Sixers,” but 20 years ago, I didn’t even know that song existed. It took me back to a simpler time in my life, when I was a dumb teenager who had no worries in the world (besides terribly slow dial-up internet).
Here is a piece that I submitted as my writing sample when I initially applied to write for The Phifth Quarter before last season. I didn’t know at that time that I would end up writing primarily about sneakers, so I was trying to come up with different and interesting angles. There are enough opinions about the team’s on and off-court doings thrown into the world, that ultimately mine wouldn’t be original enough to be interesting. I wanted to come up with a concept that would set me apart.
Anyway, here is a mildly edited/updated version of a piece I wrote about a year ago, that I honestly hadn’t thought about until I read Trey’s playlist and it got me thinking about the intersection of music and basketball in my life.
My Personal Story
The 76ers and Bucks battled in the Eastern Conference Finals in 2001, in a match up that a lot of fans probably thought was a precursor to the next few years of Eastern Conference dominance. It ultimately never came to fruition, as Philadelphia was not able to put enough around Iverson in his prime to truly contend and Ray Allen ended up getting traded a few seasons later after he and George Karl couldn’t get along. The reason I’m here is not to rehash the Eastern Conference landscape of the early 2000’s, but rather to relive a story from my youth.
credit: CBS
My friends and I were nearing the end of our freshmen year while that series was being played. None of us were truly 76ers fans (like a lot of kids my age, we were pseudo Bulls fans for obvious reasons), but Iverson was great, and we were hooked through the playoffs. This is not about the Sixers though.
I couldn’t resist
This is about the 2000 Milwaukee Bucks theme song – Light It Up!
For whatever reason – read: boredom – my friends and I, in the infancy of the internet, would search for obscure NBA theme songs. We were goofy kids from the Lehigh Valley, who had absolutely zero ties to the city of Milwaukee, but for whatever reason the Bucks songs stuck with us. To this day, I can text my brother “Sam Cassell” and I’ll receive a “Light it up, light it up” a few minutes later.
Let’s break down Light It Up and some other NBA theme songs.
Light It Up – 2000 Milwaukee Bucks
(Sorry, I can’t find the 2000 version on YouTube, only on the Bucks website which I can’t embed from)
Mil-wau-kee! Mil-wau-kee! It’s a perfect early 2000’s NBA pump up song. The Bucks hadn’t won much of anything – and still haven’t – but they were trying to inject some passion for the NBA into the city. They had a bona fide superstar in Ray Allen surrounded by a decent supporting cast. This list of players “lighting it up” is gold.
- Ray Allen – Franchise player, though not good enough to be the best player on a championship team.
- Big Dog (Glenn Robinson) – Former number one overall pick who was in his prime at this point (1999-00 and 2000-01 All-Star) and was a formidable second option.
- Tim Thomas – Seems like they were trying to build the hype machine for this one. He was young and had gotten acquired via trade a few years prior.
- Sam Cassell – Solid veteran point guard at the end of his prime.
- The Tractor (Robert Traylor) – 1998 first round pick (6th overall). They were really trying.
- Danny Manning – This was his only season in Milwaukee and at 33 years old averaged 16.9 minutes and 4.6 points off the bench.
Favorite part: Rhyming division, swishin’, dishin’, and mission in successive verses. Maybe Clyde Frazier was a ghost writer.
Celtics Pride – 1984 Boston Celtics
This is a poppy, jazzy tune written for a local Boston radio station in the mid-1980s. The singer was doing his best Steve Winwood impression. Can’t you just imagine Sully from Dorchester driving to work as the sun comes up on a cold February morning, window cracked as he’s taking a drag from his Newport, bopping along to this track? We hate the Celtics, but this is a catchy little ditty.
Miami Heat 1990s
Go ahead and do a YouTube search for a Miami Heat song. The majority are from unknown rappers from the 2010-2014 Big 3 era. Dig a little deeper, and you’ll encounter this gem.
The song and accompanying video was created for the 1996-97 season. The music video features Tim Hardaway, Alonzo Mourning, and Dan Majerle prominently while an R&B crooner does an ask and response with a backing choir. “Can you feel the heat down in your soul?”
Bonus points if you have any clue who the player is at the 29 second mark. And no – it’s not Rony Seikaly.
Go NY Go – 1994 New York Knicks
This sounds so much like the song Vanilla Ice wrote for the Ninja Turtles movie three years earlier – “Go Ninja Go Ninja GO!” The Knicks plagiarizing him almost makes up for him jacking the David Bowie and Queen beat for “Ice, Ice Baby.”
The lip-syncing in the video is the best. The mid-90s Knicks were known for being such tough guys which just makes the goofiness of this even better. “We take charges and we set picks. We are New York. We are the New York Knicks!”
Here Come the Sixers – 1975 Philadelphia 76ers
Of course this is the closer. It’s the most perfect NBA song ever written. It is super campy, but is works on every level.
Outside of “Let it Go” from Frozen, it’s probably my 3-year-old’s favorite song (which makes sense considering Sesame Street was the source material). She knows all the words and loves clapping her hands and stomping her feet. The song is fun for all ages. There is no way to not smile while listening to it.
There are countless more to be found on the internet. Have fun doing deep dives and jumping down rabbit holes to find them.
