On Tuesday night the Cubs attempted to rally in the bottom of the ninth. The first two runners reached base before Seiya Suzuki sent his 11th home run of the season over the wall to pull the Cubs within two runs of the Phillies. However, like so many other efforts at the corner of Clark and Addison this season, the late inning outburst by the Cubs fell short. The Phillies turned to Jeff Hoffman, who quickly dispatched the Cubs to seal the victory for Philadelphia. As the last out was recorded the Cubs organist turned to some classic despondent rock from Lynyrd Skynyrd playing fans out to the melancholy notes of “Tuesday’s Gone:”
It’s not the first time the Cubs organists have gotten creative as the 2024 Cubs find new ways to lose this season. We all know when the Cubs win we get to sing “Go Cubs Go!” However, after Cubs losses, pretty much anything is fair game. After the Cubs lost their last home game to the Mets on Ryne Sandberg Statue Day, fans left the friendly confines to the tune of “Comfortably Numb” by Pink Floyd:
The organists at a baseball game are part of the essential baseball experience. There is something about the strains of music echoing across the field from the Lowrey Organ that hits my auditory senses the same way the beauty of the grass and field hits my eyes each time I walk up the concourse. Cubs fans are blessed to have two of the most clever and engaged organists in the game playing us through the ups and downs of each season with John Benedeck and Josh Langhoff providing a musical soundtrack to every baseball game at Wrigley Field.
Listening to “Tuesday’s Gone” as I watched fans filter out of Wrigley disappointed yet again, it occurred to me that there’s no shortage of utterly depressing music to capture the futility of this season. So below are just a few of my humble suggestions for other songs that could capture the mood during what are sure to be many more losses after Cubs games this season.
Runaway Train — Soul Asylum
One of the most depressing songs from my childhood, Soul Asylum’s “Runaway Train” strikes precisely the chord this Cubs team inspires as they fail to hit for multiple innings in a row, or the bullpen comes in to give up a crooked number and take down yet another starting pitchers’ gem. From the lyrics:
It seems no one can help me now
I’m in too deep
There’s no way out
This time I have really led myself astray[Chorus]
Runaway train never going back
Wrong way on a one-way track
Seems like I should be getting somewhere
Somehow I’m neither here nor there
Everybody Hurts — REM
Another classic from the early 90’s (really, something must have been in the air during this era of music). The music video really nails one of the most mundane and repetitive experiences of modern existence: being stuck in traffic and all of the drama or lack thereof during that daily experience. “Sometimes everything is wrong and it’s time to sing along,” indeed:
When your day is long
And the night, the night is yours alone
When you’re sure you’ve had enough
Of this life, well hang onDon’t let yourself go
‘Cause everybody cries
Everybody hurts sometimes
The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald — Gordon Lightfoot
Returning to Classic Rock for a moment, “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” tells the tale of a ship that wrecked in Lake Superior during a terrible storm in November 1975. Now, this Cubs team is obviously not going to be playing meaningful baseball anywhere near November. However, with Lake Michigan visible from the upper deck of Wrigley Field, terrible ship wrecks in the Great Lakes seem like a fitting metaphor for this team:
Does any one know where the love of God goes
When the waves turn the minutes to hours?
The searchers all say they’d have made Whitefish Bay
If they’d put fifteen more miles behind her
They might have split up or they might have capsized
They may have broke deep and took water
And all that remains is the faces and the names
Of the wives and the sons and the daughtersLake Huron rolls, Superior sings
In the rooms of her ice-water mansion
Old Michigan steams like a young man’s dreams
The islands and bays are for sportsmen
And farther below Lake Ontario
Takes in what Lake Erie can send her
And the iron boats go as the mariners all know
With the gales of November remembered
Caravan of Fools — John Prine
This brilliant little song by Steve Goodman’s friend and fellow troubadour John Prine has the added bonus of potentially being applicable to all sorts of Cubs characters. The front office, the players on the field, yes, even the fans in the stands with their “love and devotion, deep as any ocean:”
Like the wings of a dove
The waiter’s white glove
Seems to shimmer by the light of the pool
Some dull, blinding winter
When you can’t help but lose
You’re running with the caravan of foolsLove and devotion, deep as any ocean
Don’t play by anybody’s rules
With your carousel of horses
And your unforeseen forces
You’re running with the caravan of fools
Space Oddity — David Bowie
I was a bit torn on including this one, the hopelessness of floating in a tin can drifting away from Earth called to me but it seemed like I might be stretching the metaphor a bit far. Then I got to the lyrics, and it had me at “Can you hear me, Major Tom?”
For here am I sitting in a tin can
Far above the world
Planet Earth is blue
And there’s nothing I can doThough I’m past one hundred thousand miles
I’m feeling very still
And I think my spaceship knows which way to go
Tell my wife I love her very much
She knowsGround Control to Major Tom
Your circuit’s dead, there’s something wrong
Can you hear me, Major Tom?
Can you hear me, Major Tom?
Can you hear me, Major Tom?
Can you he—
This is merely a starter kit of hopeless melodies for Cubs losses in the second half. I got some excellent suggestions last night when I put this question out to Twitter, including “Hurt” (the Johnny Cash version), “Wake Me Up When September Ends” (Green Day), and, of course, the iconic “Taps.”
What are your suggestions for appropriate Cubs music for 2024 losses? As always, please share them in the comments. I found this little exercise cathartic and hope you will too.