I know that now in 2015 this song is considered by many to be an overused, sports-clichéd, sweaty 40-year-old workout standard for balding men with more paunch than punch. But back in 1976, it was the theme song from the Academy award-winning film (Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Film Editing) that inspired a young string-bean from Arimo, Idaho to work out hard every day, jogging and lifting weights, and sticking to a struck diet so that he could change himself through sheer willpower and the sacrifice of physical pain to become the kind of man he always wished that he could be.
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| "It's an improvement." |
Of course, my friends and I made fun of that young man mercilessly. Still, we couldn't deny the fact that no other song on the radio had the irresistible pump-you-up power of "Gonna Fly Now!" Yet, that didn't stop us from mocking the song by singing at the top of our lungs the line "Gonna Fry Cows! Gonna Fry Cows! Gonna Fry…Fry…FRYYYYYYYYYY!"
You'd think that with such unrestrained mockery this song would be precluded from even being considered for this list. However, this song is on the top-200 list for two very good reasons. First, there's the fact that it always produces lots and lots of goosebumps. I don't even have to hear the song to get them. In fact, I just now only imagined the first few lines of the song in my head, and I was able to induce waves of goosebumps twice. I think it has to do with the fact that we played this song in pep band so many times during those clutch situations where the team managed to score the points needed to pull ahead for the victory. I remember the wrestlers liked it so much that we'd often get requests from them to play it several times during the same meet. Which we did. And why not?! That's what guys in the pep band are supposed to do--pep up the players! (And watch the cheerleaders. Very closely. Oh, so very closely….)
But the second reason this song has achieved all-time-favorite status is because I heard it on my mission in Sweden so much. The songs from Rocky I and Rocky II were from those kind of mostly instrumental albums that my companions and I could listen to without feeling like we were breaking the mission rules. We probably were breaking the rules, but we didn't FEEL like we were, so…yeah…we just kept listening to those songs. A lot. Mostly on prep days and at night after tracting door-to-door non-stop for 12 hours with no success at all and we were in need of a little emotional pick-me-up or we'd end up crying ourselves to sleep. And while we were tracting, we'd often blurt out lines from Rocky I, Rocky II, and Rocky III at each other out of the blue, just for fun.
"Cut me, Mick!"
"This guy is a wreckin' machine!"
"He'll knock you to tomorrow, Rock!"
"You're gonna eat lightnin' and you're gonna crap thunder!"
"Dead meat!"
"I'm gonna bust you up!"
"Go for it!"
"You ain't so bad!"
"The truth is I don't wanna loose what I got!"
"Alright, I'm afraid! For the first time in my life I'm afraid!"
"How'd you get so tough?"
"I live with a fighter."
Now when I hear "Gonna Fly Now" or any of those Rocky-related songs, I get flashbacks of tiny Swedish apartments, and in the back of my mind I can hear my old companions voices throwing quotes at me while we're walking down cobblestone streets and trudging our way up apartment stairwells.
And that's another way for a song to make it on the list--remind me of Sweden. It doesn't even have to be a really good memory. At this point in my life--which definitely involves middle-aged memory loss--any memory of Sweden at all will do. But if a song can combine flashbacks of Sweden with goosebumps, then there's a very good chance the song will become a strong, unstoppable contender for the title of "Favorite Song." And this one definitely makes the cut. Just under the right eye. To reduce the swelling so I can see out of it and keep fighting.
"Yo! Adrian! I did it!"
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