Sep 202012
 

I was trying to think about what the legacy of recently deceased NFL Films cofounder Steve Sabol means to us, or how we might apply the mythology he built for his industry to myth-making in rock ‘n roll. Fear not, this will not be an attempt to equate football with rock ‘n roll.

For those who don’t know the first thing about Steve Sabol, his father Ed, and NFL Films, it was an small, independent company that won a contract to shoot highlights of NFL games beginning in the early ’60s. By the end of the decade, the company’s innovative, orchestrated, and dramatically narrated weekly highlight reels brought the game to sports fans like never before. Their style became the Look of the NFL, as described below, in a passage by longtime Philadelphia football writer and eventual NFL films employee Ray Didinger. as kids tuned in each Saturday morning then ran out to the nearest open field re-enacting the latest slow-motion sideline catch or safety blitz with their friends while the highlights were fresh in mind. This was what Sabol called the “backyard moment.”

A typical NFL Films piece will open with the pounding of kettle drums and a close-up of a player breathing steam through his face mask. There is blood on his jersey. His eyes scan the field in slow motion. The music swells and just like that, you’re hooked. Even if you know how the game turned out, you keep watching because you never saw it quite this way before.

I really believe a major factor in the surge of pro football popularity over the past 40 years was the influence of NFL Films. No other sport had anything like it. NFL Films took you inside the game and put you eyeball-to-eyeball with the players. They shoved your face in the snow in Green Bay. They made you feel what it’s like to be on the field. Above all, they made you care. – Ray Didinger, CSN Philly

Rock ‘n roll has never had a weekly highlights show (only Top 40 countdowns, which never really took viewers into the studio or on stage), but it does have its share of classic filmed and televised performances. What are the key myth-making cinematic moments in rock? What are the specific “backyard moments” of rock, not entire films or performances but key moments, like Pete Townshend’s slide at the end of “Won’t Get Fooled Again” in The Kids Are Alright?

Taking this idea one step further, if we could go back in time, to a time when kids actually cared about rock ‘n roll, and you were asked to launch a weekly rock ‘n roll highlights show, what aspects of musicians playing would you and your crew look to zoom in on and run in slow-motion? Who would be your narrator?

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  11 Responses to “NFL Films-Worthy Moments in Rock?”

  1. I would just the video for Wanted Dead or Alive by Bon Jovi, and have the narrator for NFL films recite the lyrics in the third person. The video for Home Sweet Home by Motley Crue might work as well but you would have to punch up the lyrics.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SRvCvsRp5ho

    It’s all the same, only the names will change
    Everyday it seems they’re wasting away
    Another place where the faces are so cold
    They drive all night just to get back home

    They’re cowboys, on a steel horse they ride
    Wanted dead or alive

    Sometimes they sleep, sometimes it’s not for days
    And the people they meet always go their separate ways
    Sometimes they tell the day
    By the bottle that they drink
    And times when they’re alone all they do is think

    They’re cowboys, on a steel horse they ride
    Wanted (wanted) dead or alive

    They walk these streets, a loaded six string on their back
    They play for keeps, ’cause they might not make it back
    They’ve been everywhere, and they’re still standing tall
    They’ve seen a million faces and they’ve rocked them all

  2. Dang it, “I would just USE the video…”

  3. alexmagic

    I agree with Didinger on how huge an impact – even if just subconsciously – Sabol, John Facenda’s voice and NFL Films in general had on turning the NFL into the juggernaut it currently is. One of their underrated strengths was the ability to make year-in-review films for even awful teams, say a terrible 3-13 Tampa Bay season, seem interesting enough to watch for a half hour solely through tight production and the sound of Harry Kalas.

    cdm’s suggestion of a Facenda or Kalas reading of the lyrics to Wanted Dead or Alive is perfect. That said, the piece of rock history that feels the most similar to classic NFL Films to me is Woodstock. I bet we could probably take 15 minute chunks of footage from the movie and overdub old NFL Films narration over it without it sounding too far out of place.

    Probably Sabol’s “The Autumn Wind” would go over the part where the guy is emptying out all the port-a-johns.

  4. Good point about starting with edits to Woodstock. And yes, cdm, definitely set us on the right path.

    I would love to edit down Rude Boy to its 15 minutes of essential myth-building and overdub narration directing viewers to the power and glory of Strummer’s spit, Mick Jones’ rock preening during “White Man in Hammersmith Palais,” and Simonon’s wide 9 stance.

  5. The Clash’s London Calling video.

    Reasons: Opens with them marching onto the field of battle, they wear the same uniform, they are fighting the unpleasant elements while they play, they are united as an “us against them” team, battle cries!, and the pure physicality of the performance. Quarterback Joe is leading his two flankers with Topper as halfback. I’d be pissing my pants seeing them on the other side of the line of scrimmage.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g4dL0lv72oM&noredirect=1

  6. Near simultaneous high five on our posts.

  7. I could hear Dennis Hopper doing the narration. He was really good on that Seven Ages of Rock thing and he’s got that Easy Rider cred behind him.

    I can hear him over top of old B&W footage of Sam Phillips and Elvis educating the youngsters about the early days just like I learned about the Vince Lombardi and Bart Starr from NFL Films.

  8. cliff sovinsanity

    I would like to see the long lost footage of Townshend shoving Abbie Hoffman offstage at Woodstock get the old grainy film stock, slowed down with grunts and cursing.

  9. Jimi urging the flames higher at Monterey is my mud-encrusted Butkus with steam coming through the facemask.

    And any homo-erotic phallic imagery be damned: since I was about 12 I’ve always thought the coolest thing is when Taylor-era Mick&Keith would share a microphone. Gay overtones? I think not. I rather chalk it up to this only child wanting such comraderie. In NFL parlance I’d call this a Montana-Clark or Rice shot.

    Any live Iggy and the Stooges footage would be my Barry Sanders highlights.

    aloha
    LD

  10. misterioso

    They could have done an awesome “Dylan ’65: The Road to Newport,” heavy on the Facenda narration. Man, I’m practically seeing and hearing it right now.

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