ESPN has, for the second time, retired its Monday Night Football theme song, replacing Hank Williams’ Jr. performing “All My Rowdy Friends Are Here on Monday Night” with a Little Richard tune, Sports Business Daily reported. However, this time the cancellation has nothing to do with the singer’s politics, like it did previously.
Since 1989, Williams Jr.’s song, “All My Rowdy Friends Are Coming Over Tonight,” with re-worked lyrics to reference the football broadcast rather than a party, has been used as the MNF theme, save for a period of a few years between 2011-2017.
In 2011, the performer made comments that compared then-President Barack Obama to Adolf Hitler, and described then-Vice President Joe Biden as “the enemy.” Williams Jr., an outspoken Republican, later apologized, as CNN reported, saying that he used an “extreme” analogy to make a point.
His apology wasn’t good enough for his bosses at ESPN, and the network retired his theme song for the next few years, bringing it back again in 2017. It has served as the show’s theme song ever since.
This time, ESPN is retiring the tune once again. However, it’s not because of the singer’s politics or because of something he said or did.
Rather, the decision makers at the sports network reportedly don’t think that the song’s lyrics about friends coming together strikes the right notes during a pandemic, when people are discouraged from gathering in close proximity to one another.
Further, many of the stadiums in which MNF games will be played this season will either be empty or will have only a fraction of their capacity in the stands, and a song whose lyrics reference friends coming together makes for an odd juxtaposition that could be jarring to viewers.
As previously reported by The Inquisitr , the NFL is allowing each team to decide whether or not to allow fans into stadiums, in accordance with local laws. Washington, for example, will play its home games in front of an empty stadium, while the Atlanta Falcons will allow between 10,000-20,000 fans into Mercedes-Benz Stadium, a small fraction of its seating capacity of 70,000.
Replacing Williams’ theme song will be Little Richard’s “Rip It Up.” The network worked with the estate of the late singer, who died earlier this year, to come up with a way to present the opening music. Instead of showing clips of the performers singing and playing, a game-specific highlight reel will play before each contest.