Crossing Broad
We’ll get it back to Posidelphia in a second, but a quick gripe:
What’s with Seven Nation Army at Eagles games? Did they just start playing it this year? They used it at least three times at Lincoln Financial Field on Sunday night and played it the week before as well. This is a terrible development.
Why? Well, first, The White Stripes blow. Awful band. If you took the worst elements of garage rock, indie, and folk, you’d get The White Stripes. Second, this song came out in 2003 and has been played at sporting events for close to 20 years now, so it’s not new and there’s nothing unique about it. 2006 was when it really exploded over speaker systems countrywide, notably in Happy Valley. If you watch a Penn State game on television you will find yourself wondering if the Nitter band knows anything other than Seven Nation Army. They play it at least 27 times a game and getting it out of your head is harder than Drew Allar completing a downfield pass in a playoff game.
Thing is, WE ARE! – credited with bringing the song into American stadiums, as Mikey Mandarino wrote in 2017 for Onward State:
After a brief stay atop the Billboard rock charts in July 2003, the song was first sung in stadiums by fans of Club Brugge, a Belgian soccer club, in October 2003.
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In February of 2006, AS Roma traveled to Bruges to face the Belgian club in a UEFA Cup knockout match. Although Roma won the match 2-1, the fans who traveled from Rome were impressed by the Belgian fans’ use of the song, so they brought it back to Italy with them.
Five months later, Italy defeated France on penalties to win the 2006 World Cup. Italian fans flooded the streets of Rome to celebrate their country’s first World Cup title since 1982, and “Seven Nation Army” echoed in the Roman streets long into the night. They knew the song only as the ‘po po po’ song, adopting it as Italy’s unofficial anthem for that World Cup.
“Seven Nation Army” was first played in the United States during the 2006 Blue-White spring football intrasquad scrimmage at Beaver Stadium.
Guido D’Elia, the former director of communications for the football team, heard a radio story about the Romans’ use of the song, and asked the Penn State Blue Band to perform it. If it sounded good and students sang along, the band would keep using it. If not, the song would be scrapped.
The Blue Band played the song during the annual spring game, and, as they say, the rest is history.
“Seven Nation Army” was a regular fixture in the Beaver Stadium playlist by midseason in 2006. It got enough airtime at Beaver Stadium to a point where it was even played more than the iconic “Zombie Nation” during each game.
There’s your...
