I’ll be the first one to admit I don’t keep current with today’s popular music. I have one actual teenager, and a second on on the cusp of becoming one, and they want to listen to their music instead of mine whenever we’re out riding around together. Many’s the time that the almost-sacred sounds of Led Zeppelin have been lost to the head-scratching mumbles of some rapper. Such is life with two adolescents.
But today I heard an exception. The sign of a really good pop song, at least for me, is wanting to believe the song’s lyrics have some relevance to your own life. And so it was when Andy Grammer’s “Good to be alive (Hallelujah)” song came on the radio today.
I’m a huge fan of the Chicago Cubs, and have been ever since I was a young kid. But the catch to being a Cubs fan is that you have to be ready to be disappointed with how they play on the field. You expect failure because there’s comfort in it. Twisted, yes, but that’s been my reality for the past 39 years.
And yet this year is different. So vastly different that it’s hard to describe, except to say it feels good. I’ve lived to see a Cubs team that will make the playoffs, get to the World Series, and put this stupid run of futility and jinxes and whatever else it is to bed, once and for all. I could get used to this, as the song says. Practically every line of the song’s lyrics describes the way I feel right now, as my team marches through what’s left of the regular season and looks ahead to meaningful games in October.
I doubt very much that the song has even the smallest intended connection to baseball or to my team in particular. But I’m going to graft those associations onto the song, and hope I hear it on the radio again sometime soon. This run to–and eventually through–the playoffs needs a sonic backdrop. It could be a whole lot worse than this one.
Go Cubs! Hallelujah!
Blue Batting Helmet 