Mike Burke
Cumberland Times-News
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The Baltimore Ravens have a new fight song.
What was the wrong with their old fight song? Well, for beginners, nobody knew the words to it except John Modell, who wrote it when the Browns moved to Baltimore. But its biggest crime against nature was it wasn’t the Baltimore Colts fight song, which, to this day, is played at weddings, funerals and bar mitzvahs in and around Bawlmer, hon.
You remember the old Colts fight song, don’t you? Maybe you heard it on “The Band That Wouldn’t Die,” the ESPN documentary by Baltimore-born director Barry Levinson about the Baltimore Colts marching band — now Baltimore’s Marching Ravens.
Some of us can’t hear it enough, for a number reasons, the biggest one being, it just makes us feel good and happy; and sometimes sad, which’s isn’t an unhealthy thing.
Some of us, when we’ve finished “King of the Road,” even sing the Baltimore Colts fight song in the shower:
Let's go you Baltimore Colts
And put that ball across the line,
So, drive on you Baltimore Colts -
Go in and strike like lightning bolts,
Fight, fight, fight,
Rear up you Colts and let's fight -
Crash through and show them your might -
For Baltimore and Maryland -
You will march on to victory.
It gives you chills, doesn’t it? Particularly if you can put the tune to it in your head, and therein lies the solution as to why the Ravens have a new fight song: At the urging of nearly 7,900 out of nearly 10,000 online voters, the Ravens put new words to the old tune, and here we go:
Baltimore Ravens, let's go
And put that ball across the line
So fly with talons spread wide
Go in and strike with Ravens pride
Fight! Fight! Fight!
Ravens dark wings take to flight
Dive in and show them your might
For Baltimore and Maryland
You will fly on to victory
Naturally, I will experience the chills the first time I hear this tune at my next Ravens game, and I will feel chills every time I hear it because it reminds of the joy I experienced as a fan of the Baltimore Colts.
Personally, I’m a year older than Cal Ripken Jr., so it’s not imperative for my favorite pro football team to have a fight song, although I have been known to belt out “Hail to the Redskins!” in the shower a time or two as well. Nothing like a good fight song to get you up and at ’em first thing in the morning, you know?
Nonetheless, I will never think of Ray Lewis, or Jonathan Ogden, or Ed Reed, or Joe Flacco when I hear the Ravens’ new fight song. I will still think of John Unitas, John Mackey, Tom Matte, Raymond Berry, Orrsville and Memorial Stadium, not to mention Chuck Thompson.
Not only that, while the old Colts fight song is as simple and as easy as the age it was written in — strike like lightning bolts, Crash through and show them your might, etc. — the lyrics to the Ravens’ new song are awkward.
Of course, it’s new, but I mean, “Let’s go you Baltimore Colts,” rolls off your tongue. “Baltimore Ravens, let’s go?” The word Baltimore is just not conducive to being the first word in a song, particularly when most of the people singing it pronounce Baltimore as a two-and-a-half syllable word.
Ravens dark wings take to flight?
It’s a stretch.
Rear up you Colts and let’s fight?
I’d rather Ray-Ray fight than take to flight.
So fly with talons spread high?
Admittedly, I’m not the sharpest blade on the mower, nor am I a reader of Poe (he freaks me out, Jerry). So I had to look up talon before I understood a talon is “a claw, esp a bird of prey.” It makes sense, but it just doesn’t flow the way “Third boxcar, midnight train. Destination Bangor, Maine” does.
And while I understand real Ravens fly just as I suppose real Colts can march, I’m not nuts about the last line, “You will fly on to victory.” Just too light and breezy, you know?
The next-to-last line of the song, “For Baltimore and Maryland,” is the best line of both songs, which, of course, is the point of all of this. For those of us who absolutely love Baltimore and the state of Maryland, that’s where the chills come in.
Part of Baltimore’s charm is its devotion to its past and its old, familiar ways. So all in all, this a good move on the Ravens' part, and a typical one, as they have always gone the extra mile to accommodate their fans. And, you know, I’m getting pretty excited myself for the coming season, because once the Ravens get their secondary beefed up and in place, I feel certain they will fly on to victory.
This is going to take awhile.
Mike Burke is sports editor of the Cumberland Times-News. Write to him at mburke@times-news.
