The excellent New York Times BATS blog has a piece today intended to be interactive regarding the Yankees and Mets “signature songs,” following up on a story in the paper by Richard Sandomir on Sunday. “Meet the Mets,” the more popular (and in the opinion of most the better) of the two, helped introduce the nascent franchise to the city. “Here Come the Yankees,” which is still used on Yankees radio broadcasts, but in instrumental form, was, in effect, an “answer” to the catchy Mets tune.
Sandomir’s light-hearted piece gives a bit of the history of both and catches up with the original writers, and the BATS post asks fans to submit their own, updated lyrics in the comments.
Written out, the original lyrics — especially those of the Bombers’ song — seem a bit comical nearly a half-century later. (“We’re gonna scream, ‘Put it over the wall,’” “Oh, the butcher and the baker and the people on the streets, Where did they go?”). They probably seemed a bit comical in the 1960s as well…
But, then, so do college fight song lyrics written in the early 1900s. Like fight songs, the Yankees tune is more timeless than the lyrics. The “Meet the Mets” lyrics have proven to be more enduring, even if “…step right up and BEAT the Mets” probably followed minutes after the first Yankees fan heard the famed first line.
When I used to hear the Yankees tune before and after broadcasts in the 1970s, they were already using the instrumental version. I just assumed that the song had been around for many years, and it wasn’t until years later that I found out that it had lyrics and that it was actually written during the team’s dry spell, which lasted more than a decade from the mid-60s through the mid-70s.
I have the full version of “Here Come the Yankees” on my iPod, and it shuffles in every so often. For both songs, their corniness is part of the charm. They don’t need updated lyrics or new versions, as “unofficial anthems” like Sinatra’s “New York, New York” or Jay-Z and Alicia Keys’ “Empire State of Mind” finding their own place in Yankees lore, the latter helping the team keep up with the times.
