Cru Jones Society

 

Whether you stepping into the octagon, coming up to bat, or meeting a date you’ll want to make a good first impression. The best way we can think of to accomplish such a feat is with a kick ass entrance, and all kick ass entrances are accompanied by a kick ass song. So we wanted to know what song you would use when entering the arena for a fight, or the batter’s box, or the quasi fancy restaurant you’re meeting your date at.

And we got some great responses; responses that would be great for situation where you would make an entrance; responses that trump, or at least are on par with, Darth Vader’s dark and ominous tune. As usual, aside from last week, Dagger and Hart are first, then Daniel Larusso, and finally our reader’s submissions.

Lee S. Hart: As far back as I could remember I always wanted “Hells Bells” by AC/DC to be my entrance music, for anything. It has that great daunting opening riff and those screaming vocals. It was perfect. Then that son of a bitch Trevor Hoffman started using it and I said fuck. I wamt to be original and I don’t want to share a song with this guy, who has played most of his career against my beloved Rockies.

I also thought the A-Team theme would be a good one sans the spoken word opening. At least for baseball, for fighting it is a bit goofy and not intimidating enough.

So I set out to find a new entrance song. I thought an Iron Maiden song would be good, “Number of the Beast”, “2 Minutes to Midnight”, or “Run to the Hills”, but they weren’t as hard or fast as I wanted. So I turned to hardcore greats Sick of it All. The song “District” was making its way to the top of the list, but it was still missing something I could quite pin down.

Then I thought some slow, deep horns might be awesome and I came up with “Everything Goes Numb” by Streetlight Manifesto. The horns come in blazing at the start, then the beat kicks up and his fast and scruffy lyrics start and I get amped. Or Link 80’s “Verbal Kint.” The horns in that song are haunting and the whole song has a dark feel to it. I would also like to be thought of as a Verbal Kint type. Constantly deceptive and leading you on only to completely fuck with everything you thought about me. But I think for either of these to really work I would have to be a scrawnier, scrappier fighter. I’m way to bulky to pull this sound off.

That is why I have decided on Dropkick Murphy’s “Cadence to Arms.” This starts with the traditional Cadence played on the bagpipes, then BAMAKUU – fast punk version! This incorporates my love of punk rock, allows me to embrace my heritage, and will get me stoked and ready to smack some bitches around the octagon.

E Dagger: As a lifelong professional wrestling fan, I’ve spent my entire life either considering or answering this question. During college I used to recap Monday Night Raw and at various points had my columns appear on up to ten different pro wrestling websites. The column that was always most popular (and also one of the easiest to write) was the one I’d write either analyzing current entrance music or listing my favorite entrance tunes from all time. (For the record, the five best WWE entrance themes of all time are D-Generation X, “The Million Dollar Man” Ted Dibiase, Mr. Perfect, Stone Cold Steve Austin, and Rob Van Dam). So I’d like to say I’m uniquely qualifiied to answer this question, but that’s basically bullshit.

The truth is, any music you choose for yourself will be the right music because you’ll naturally gravitate toward something that reflects your personality and pumps you up. Hell, I’m sure there’s someone out there whose ideal music is “Let Her Cry” by Hootie and the fucking Blowfish even though that’s a weepy, sad panda college rock song.

I’ve run through probably a dozen songs in the last ten songs in considering this question. “Sex Type Thing” by Stone Temple Pilots, “Killing in the Name” by Rage Against the Machine, “X Gon’ Give It To Ya’” by DMX, “Give It All” by Rise Against – I would have gladly walked to the ring with these tunes blasting through the arena. However, there’s one song I always come back to and one that stands head and shoulders above the rest for pure blood-pumping excitement and sheer rage-fueled aggression.

My entrance music would be, without a doubt, “Walk” by Pantera. It’s by one of the aggressively angry bands of all-time, fantastic head-nodding quality, and lyrics made for ass kicking like “Run your mouth when I’m not around, it’s easy to achieve… Can you hear the violins playing your song?” I used to listen to this song walking through campus, and the beat was timed perfectly with my steps (the only other song this worked for me with was “Testify” by Rage Against the Machine), so before every class I felt like I was heading to the cage ready to drop any motherfucker who gave me a cross look with a punch to the head. In retrospect, this was probably an unhealthy way to walk through campus.

But the point remains, walking around pumped up is certainly better than walking around glumly before each class. With the possible exception of “Tall Cans in the Air” by The Transplants, no song gives me a boost of adrenaline like “Walk.” And “Walk” wins this battle because in your UFC entrance, you may not want to be accompanied by lyrics that include references to booze, cocaine sacks, and hate crimes. But maybe I’m crazy.

Daniel Larusso really made a good choice by entering to Joe Esposito’s “You’re the Best Around.” But as we found out, our readers have made some pretty fitting choices.

Dollar: My entrance music would have to be, “Sweetest Girl (dollar bill)” by Wyclef Jean. But let’s skip straight to the chorus for “Dolla’ Dolla’ bill, ya’ll.” Fitting, quite fitting.

Cassie B: “Right Now” by Van Halen. I imagine my fight song blaring as I enter the rink for my championship curling match. I choose this sport because I know good and well I do not have enough talent in any other sport to warrant an introductory song, and how hard could curling really be?  Plus I think I could come up with some darling fur outfit to keep warm in.

Kristatothemax: I’m gonna call this song my “Game Face” song.  The first thing that ran through my mind was ABBA’s “Dancing Queen” because it is my game face song on the dance floor, but it would probably would get me slaughtered in a fight situation.  Anyway, I can’t commit to one song, but it might be one of the following:

- “Hollaback Girl” by Gwen Stefani (What?  Don’t roll your eyes.  It’s catchy and in-your-face, in an oh-no-you-didn’t-just-hit-on-my-man-you-dumb-whore! kind of way.)

- “Float On” by Modest Mouse.  (The intro is rad.  This one doesn’t say “I will kick your ass” as much as it says “I will be triumphant eventually, even though you’ll probably kick mine first…”)

 - ”I Want to Break Free” by Queen  (Because it just doesn’t get much better.  Can you imagine this in a meeting?!)

For the record, I just have to add that “Eye of the Tiger” will forever be the best intro song, but it has been reserved for Rocky.  And I’m not fighting him for it.

Flickerbock: I’m sure that you are expecting a response from me that includes The Darkness since I seem to pick that extinct glam band at any opportunity on CJS. However, no references to The Darkness will be made in this post (besides the last one). Instead, I will branch out and try something else. Since I am a sissy (I have only been in one fight my entire life and it was when I was 10 or 11 and against a fat kid so I just jumped on his back and choked him out), I am picking the song I would use for an at-bat and not a fight intro. My fight intro would consist of the music starting and the crowd getting excited and the din would eventually die down because I would never emerge from the tunnel. I actually would be running as fast as I can away from the ring/octagon/whatever. Because of the brevity of the song usage before the at-bat, the song has to have a great intro. It has to get the fans pumped up and get their fat asses out of the seats. Because of this I have narrowed it down to two songs – first is “Hooked on an 8 Second Ride” by Chris LeDoux. It starts slow and quickly builds up to be a fast paced country-rock tribute to those guys crazy enough to ride bulls or broncos for a living. The other option and definitely my first choice is “Ain’t Nothing But a G Thang” by Snoop Dogg and Dr. Dre. Mostly because “you have no clue what me and my homie Snoop Dogg came to do.”

Now we’re all ready to make our entrances, make our impressions felt, and strike fear into those who oppose us. Also go ahead and try to stop singing “You’re the Best Around,” or “Eye of the Tiger” for the rest of the day. We’ve been humming them around the CJS offices all week.

These entrance songs would also come in handy if you were a super hero. But more important to being a super hero is the super power. Which is why we want you to answer this question: If you could have a superpower, what would it be? You only get one, and it can’t be “being able to mutate into having other superpowers,” so choose carefully. A power we don’t have is telepathy, so we need you email us your answer.. Then you can read all the answers here next Monday.

We want to know more about all our readers. So don’t hold back. If you haven’t confessed, or it’s been awhile, or even if you did it last week, we want to hear from you. Don’t be shy and send us your response, along with your posting name to staff@crujonessociety.com and we’ll put them up next week.

Dagger & Hart