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I’ll Sign Up to be Waterboarded While Listening to Dancing on My Own if it Means No More Penn State Songs at Citizens Bank Park
Published:
At some point in the later innings on Monday night, Citizens Bank Park played Seven Nation Army over the PA system, several times:
Agree with @psuflyers24. I would rather go back to Dancing on My Own than have to listen to Seven Nation Army at Citizens Bank Park, or Lincoln Financial Field, or any sporting venue in the Greater Delaware Valley. You can waterboard me at the same time, using dirty Schuylkill water.
What’s worse is that in between the Seven Nation Army bits, they went to Zombie Nation, which is another Penn State song. Two songs that Penn State adopted in the mid-2000s getting prime real estate at Citizens Bank Park in a 2025 playoff game. What’s next, a shock Gary Glitter reprise?
Why do we do this? Why does every team around the world play the same arena music? Do we have nothing unique or original to play? Why do the professional teams in Philadelphia have to borrow 20-year-old songs from a college program? It’s like listening to a milquetoast wedding DJ go through “Uptown Funk” and “Brown Eyed Girl” because, you know, you just have to play those songs.
Back in January, we wrote an award-losing story titled “Quick Gripe: I am Begging the Eagles to Leave Seven Nation Army in Happy Valley, Where it Belongs.” Among the paragraphs of erudition was this one:
The White Stripes blow. Awful band. If you took the worst elements of garage rock, indie, and folk, you’d get The White Stripes. Second, this song came out in 2003 and has been played at sporting events for close to 20 years now, so it’s not new and there’s nothing unique about it. 2006 was when it really exploded over speaker systems countrywide, notably in Happy Valley. If you watch a Penn State game on television you will find yourself wondering if the Nitter band knows anything other than Seven Nation Army. They play it at least 27 times a game and getting it out of your head is harder than Drew Allar completing a downfield pass in a playoff game.
Thankfully we have the guy at the Flyers games keeping things real. You wanna hear decent music? Go down to the Xfinity Mobile Arena. They’re not gonna play a bunch of Penn State stuff over the speakers.
I am officially calling for a ban on all Penn State songs at Philadelphia sporting venues.
Kevin has been writing about Philadelphia sports since 2009. He spent seven years in the CBS 3 sports department and started with the Union during the team's 2010 inaugural season. He went to the academic powerhouses of Boyertown High School and West Virginia University. email - k.kinkead@sportradar.com