Writing the Steeler Country Song

In the last post, I described the origins of the song called "This is Steeler Country." Now, I'd like to talk about how the rest of the song was written.

The song was built around that one line that I mentioned in my last post, "Hold your head up high, you're in Steeler Country now." That line came to me all on its own, as is often the case when you're writing a song. There's no explaining where these things come from to people who are not song writers -- for people who are songwriters, you know exactly what I'm talking about. So, once I knew that I want ed to build a song around the idea of Steeler Country (makes sense, since this is going to be a country song...) I had to figure out what I wanted to say with the verses. The typical Pittsburgh Steelers fight song will mention a bunch of the players on the team and then the song writer will have to update that song every year for it to still make sense. This happened with the last Pittsburgh Steelers Fight Song that I wrote and I didn't want to deal with it this time. So, for the first verses, I took the approach of mentioning only some of the old names -- the guys that really made Pittsburgh "Steeler Country" back in the 1970's. Of course, because of the melody I had chosen, I had to find names that fit the syllables I was looking for... the names "Franco, Bradshaw, Swann and Mean Joe Greene" just kind of fell off my lips, so I sued those guys. Three players from the Offense and one from the Defense. I really wanted to use Jack Lambert in there, but didn't want to leave out terry Bradshaw who was the only 2-syllable name I could replace if I used Jack Lambert. So I kept it as is.

Then I decided a couple things... One, I should talk about how those players (and our current players) are all in our Hall of Fame as far as Pittsburgh Steeler fans are concerned. That's the reason for the next line "There's a building up in Canton that they call the Hall of Fame -- but we got our own, Steeler Country is its name."

Then some good-natured ribbing of all the Superbowls we've won was in order. hence the line... "This is Steeler Country and if you ain't aware what it's like to hold a trophy, we've a few to spare." What really makes the Pittsburgh Steelers special in my book, is its fan base. So the next line "If you want to know our secret, well we bring it to every game -- it's called 'The 12th Man' -- Steeler Country is its name!"

Back to the chorus "It's a football nation and we're the heart and soul/That's why we fill more seats than you, even on the road" which is almost true, but not quite. Pittsburgh Steeler fans are known for buying A LOT of the tickets even at the stadiums of opposing teams. It's amazing how many Terrible Towels you see all over the U.S. The the chorus says, "So if you're coming to Pittsburgh/go buy a terrible towel/ And hold your head up high, You're in Steeler Country now!"

Coming out of this chorus is a bridge and it's a shout-out to all the wonderful Steeler Bars throughout the nation that support the Pittsburgh Steelers. It says, "If you can't be at the game -- OK/ Find a little place in your town/ Where beer is sold and Black 'n' Gold hang from roof to ground/ And buy them friends a round!"

Back to the chorus with a little red meat for the fans, "The only town in the whole damn world with six (6) Superbowls!"

The fade out gives the fans a chance to sing along. I imagine the crowd of 60,000 people at Heinz Field all singing my Pittsburgh Steelers Fight Song some day... I'll be in my usual seats as I listen to everyone chanting, "Hey, Hey, Hey! This is Steeler Country!" When I hear that someday, it's going to be VERY fulfilling. I hope this comes to pass. It would be a nice validation for all the time, effort, hard work, late nights and tears I've put into becoming a better song writer!!!

Go Steelers! This is Steeler Country!


GET THE SONG HERE:
www.SteelerCountrySong.com