Let's get back to the countdown of songs that manage to be MORE inappropriate for an Angels 7th inning stretch than the current self-aware disaster, The Foundations' "Build Me Up Buttercup". We're stuck with that song for the foreseeable future, but this countdown is here to remind you that it could always be worse.
After the jump, we take a look at #9 on the list: Frank Black - "Los Angeles".
That portly guy in the video, the one wearing the aviator shades and driving a hovercraft, that's Frank Black. He played in The Pixies, and when they broke up, he went solo as rock stars are oft to do, and released this little gem of a song on the world back in 1993. Now, I believe in my heart that "Los Angeles", at least the first two minutes or so, is indeed muscular enough and with just the right amount of populist, fist-pumping glee to not only warrant a shot at entertaining Anaheim in the middle of the 7th, but that it could also succeed in doing so. But this countdown is about songs that are not appropriate whatsoever at an Angels game. So why on Earth would a song called "Los Angeles" be on the list? Some of you may see where I'm going with this already.
The driven-into-the-ground joke surrounding the Angels is of course their name, or rather, the whole "Los Angeles of Anaheim" thing. A Halo hater using that tried route when wanting to take a jab at you will always go to the old name change gripe. Or they may be one of those people who live in L.A. and/or are Dodger fans, and they take it as a personal attack on them and "their" city that a team from Orange County might latch onto the Los Angeles market and city affiliation. I thought it sort of sucked at the beginning, but I'm so over it and so far removed from it, as I think not only most fans are but also most media outlets outside of the southland (we're just the L.A. Angels to them). So why drag ourselves back into it with Frank Black's "Los Angeles"? It'd just be creepy, seeing 40,000 people or so shouting in unison "I wanna live in Los Angeles. Not the one in Los Angeles". It'd also cement our status as a team with a confused identity and fan base, and as having the most self-loathing and grossly envious 7th inning stretch song ever.
I'd go even further in saying that Frank Black was somewhat prophetic in this song. He says:
"I met a man/ he was a good man/ sailing and shoring/dancing the beta-can can/making me foreign/oh yeah"
Is this mysterious, sailing and shoring man Arte Moreno? Making us all foreign by flipping the teams city up on it's head? What's the beta can can dance, and who taught Arte how to do this? Was it Tony Reagins or Mike Scioscia? Weird questions are raised the deeper I look into this one.
"I want to live in Los Angeles/ Not the one in Los Angeles/ Counting helicopters on a Saturday night/ the symphony of the fair light"
Just thinking about the implications on not only the team's success, but also every fans psyche and mental well being, that "Los Angeles" and it's Twilight Zone-esque yearning would possibly bring to the 7th inning stretch gives me goosebumps. Stay away from this one, friends. It's a rabbit hole, and all I see at the end is Los Angeles.
Honorable mention: Snoop Dogg-"What's My Name?"