Listening to The Bay City Rollers' "Yesterday's Hero" this morning I thought about how band cheers are simply not used enough in songs. The tune commences with an ostensibly live crowd hollering "WE WANT ROLLERS, WE WANT ROLLERS" and baby, they don't mean to set their fabulous 70's hair. The only other use I can think of off the top of my head is Sloan's "If It Feels Good Do It" which again starts with, and revisits in the chorus, the Sloan Cheer, also known as "SLLLOOOOOOOAAAANNNN, SLLLOOOOOOOAAAANNNN, SLLLOOOOOOOAAAANNNN"Not all bands have a cheer. Some bands names are too short (U2 for instance). Some have a clumsy cheer as I have noted previously on this blog. And other bands just aren't worth cheering for (The Barenaked Ladies for instance). But regardless of how nice the bands themselves are, it seems it would be a fine idea to put more band cheers in actual songs. When you hear 1000's of Japanese girls yelling 'Cry! Cry! Cry!' at Robin Zander during the Live from Budokhan version of Cheap Trick's 'I Want You To Want Me' you know they must be on to something. Ain't that the beauty of arena rock?
