Sing, sing a song…

“…Sing out loud
Sing out strong
Sing of good things not bad
Sing of happy not sad”

So.

Here we are.

We’re going to see the 2025 Thorns in just over a month, meaning camp is likely to begin soon. Next week? Sure! Maybe. Possibly. Probably? Who the fuck knows?

I think we’re still a couple of player pieces and a new gaffer short, but that’s Jeff Agoos’ problem now. We’ll see what he does with it.

Until then we, well, kinda got nothing.

I got nothin’. To write about, anyway, so I’m going to revisit, like a dog returning to it’s vomit¹, a very old and well-worn soccer quirk of mine;

Player songs.

It’s been a while, though, and I’ve got some new ideas, so, here we go.

First…who should get a song?

Well, some players pretty much demand them and, no, I’m not going to insist we figure out how to work “Gabby Provenzano” into a jukebox melody. Nope. The obvious targets are Sophia Smith (no, duh?) and Sam Coffey and Hina Sugita. Slam-dunk, easy-peasy. We need songs for those three first.

I’m gonna add Morgan Weaver just because she’s my favorite Chaos Muppet.

Sadly, we lost our chance to sing for one of the most iconic players ever to pull on Thorns red when Meghan Klingenberg went unsigned this autumn. I wish…well, if it was an amicable ending and she retires, I hope she gets a “day” this coming season and we could sing to her then.

That’s…kind of it. The roster has other fine players, but none that loom quite as much above the rest.

And I can’t figure out how to write new lyrics to “Deutschland Uber Alles” for Marie Muller, so let’s keep it simple. Beginning with, obviously…

Sophia Smith

I’ve got two suggestions. The first, and my favorite, is actually an idea put out by my compa Richard Hamje, and it’s adapted from the 1960 song “My Old Man’s a Dustman” by Lonnie Donegan.

(Which, BTW, led me to look up “skiffle“, which is kinda fascinating…)

Richard’s version takes the chorus and adapts it to our star striker:

“Our Soph is a wizard,
She wears a magic hat.
She could have gone to Chelsea
But she said ‘no, fuck that!”
She scores ’em with her left foot,
She scores ’em with her right,
And when we win the league again
We’ll sing this song all night!”

I like it! Fun, catchy, very quick to sing and repeat a time or two, and it’s worked for fans elsewhere².

The other is, frankly, my attempt to stroke the Riveters’ capos love for obscure song sources (such as the Madness tune that was the inspiration for the “(Insert number here) Goal(s) Beyond” celebration song…) by ringing up this tune from the appropriately-named Smiths:

“Weekend on the playing fields,
Soph scores with fucking ease.
Megs you in the midfield,
Dekes you in the box,
Sends you home with no points.
I don’t wanna go home.
I just wanna stay.”

Less-catchy, for sure, but that’s not the point; it’s to seduce the capo/fan faction that treasures the really-reachy stuff like the BAON Box T-shirt³.

That’s what I got. But Smith is so fucking good she probably deserves half a dozen, so any suggestions are welcome!

Okay, then, how about

Sam Coffey

For me (who’s kind of a “music from the Thirties and Forties” groupie” guy)? Suuuuper easy;

“I love Coffey, I love tea!
I love the Portland Thorns and victory!
Coffey and tea and the Thorns and me
Go Sam, go Sam, go Sam, go Sam, go Sam (woooo!)”

Short and sharp, a kind of “Raso-Raso-Raso-oi-oi-oi” song for a quick response to that crushing Coffey tackle or slide-rule pass.

The “coffee” cognate provides a ton of songs to choose from.

Peggy Lee doing “Black Coffee“?

It’s feelin’ like a party
I haven’t slept a wink
I stand and sing for everything
And in between I drink – to
Sam Coffey!“

No? Okay, how about Bob Marley?

“Our Sam Coffey, let’s fucking go;
Though I just dropped by to let you know
That I’m loving you tomorrow;
You cause Orlando (insert opponent name) sorrow:
Our Sam Coffey, let’s fucking go!”

You GOTTA have a favorite “coffee” song, right? It’s Portland! Coffee’s what we do! Lay it on me!

Now, for…

Hina Sugita

…it’s also easy because there’s really only one first best choice, adapted from the Japan national team song “Vamos Nippon“⁴:

“Hina-san, Hina-san,
Hina-sana, Hina-san, vamos Hina-san!”

She’ll totally recognize it, make the connection, and I can’t think of a better way to love on her.

I’m still kind of open to suggestion, tho. Before I heard the Vamos Nippon song my thought was to adapt the old cherry-blossom folk song “Sakura“:

“Su-gi-ta!
Su-gi-ta!
Kicks ass just like Gojira!”

Not sure that works quite as well; lacks the emo connection for Hina-san. But, still, kind of a quick snap-chant for that artisanal Sugita goal…

Which leaves us with

Morgan Weaver

I can’t think of a better and easier Weaver song than:

“Ooh, dream weaver.
I believe you can get me through the night.
Ooh, dream weaver.
I believe we can reach the morning light.”

Everybody knows it, doesn’t even need new lyrics. Some heroic fans tried back in 2022…but that brings us to the big rock in the flow of the song stream; the capos.

I summed up the issues in this whole “player song versus capos” problem in the linked post:

“Oh, and huuuuuuge props to the group of fans who tried to start a “Dream Weaver” song after her goals. Sorry, gang, the capos won’t let you out to play; 1) player songs are pure spontaneous fun, and 2) the whole idea of “capos” means that spontaneous fun ain’t on the bingo card.”

As the above suggests – I’m very conflicted on capos.

I appreciate the work they do, keeping the energy high, bringing in the noise that makes us the “this is what supporter’s groups should be” ideal. I get it; they are a big part of matchday vibes.

But.

I think things have tilted too far one way at the expense of the other.

In their urgency to keep up the wall of noise I think the capos need to 1) think more about the current state of the songbook, and 2) keep a closer eye on the action on the field.

It seems like forever-ago, but there once was a huge (well, huge within the North End, anyway) argument over retiring the Timbers song “Portland Boys” because it was sexist and rude. It was…but it was also a longtime Timbers Army favorite, and like so much in this Lesser Gilded Age, the notion of giving up a rude, sexist thing to be, well, less rude and sexist, pissed off certain kinds of people.

I remember thinking at the time that, though, that it wasn’t JUST sexist and rude but a million fucking years old and tired as fuck. I would have been perfectly fine never to hear or sing it again…or at least no more than (with less sexist lyrics…) once or twice a season.

I kind of feel that way about quite a bit of the current Riveters songbook.

If I never hear or sing “Five Hundred Songs” again? Or never more than a couple times a season? I’d be just fiiiiiine with that.

Kinda works that way for several other songs. Not all! “Guillotine” is still kind of fun, and “(Insert Number Here) Goal(s) Beyond” is perfect for celebrating. I liked “Iko Iko”, which has disappeared for some reason but was a cheerful little anthem.

But I think a LOT of the songbook has gotten really stale.

We need some new energy. And I think that means some new songs.

Like…player songs!

Fucking Takayuki Suzuki had his own song! If he had one, Sophia Smith should have, like, a dozen! I’m serious. We’re not being good fans here.

Player songs! C’mon! Let’s fucking go!!!

Notes:

¹Proverbs 26:11 – “As a dog returneth to his vomit, so a fool returneth to his folly.”

²“The tune to the chorus has become a popular football chant in recent years. For example, Arsenal supporters sang “Arsène Wenger’s magic, he wears a magic hat, and when he saw the double, he said ‘I’m having that!'” at the end of their double winning season in 2002; Chelsea fans later adopted it after ex-Arsenal player Cesc Fabregas assisted the Blues in securing a double of their own in 2015.”

³“A definition of BAON for the food-motivated supporter, featuring favorites like lumpia and pancit from the Philippines.”

⁴And, yes, the Japan fans have a song for the サムライ・ブルー, Samurai Burū and なでしこジャパン the Nadeshiko that has only two words and one is the Spanish word for “let’s go”. Don’t look at me, I didn’t invent it.