Stand Up and Get Crunk

First of all, congratulations and Who Dat to the Saints fans out there. While I'm not one, nor do I claim to be, I've got New Orleanian heritage and wish the city the best (and all of the ills of the world to the Colts, for the record) so I was pleased with Sunday night's results.

As we bid adieu to football season--with nary a lingering presence from a post-Super Bowl Pro Bowl--I wanted to take a moment to reflect on the World [sic] Champion New Orleans Saints.

When I've daydreamed about every NFL franchise having its own marching band, New Orleans was always one of the ones that seemed to be a no-brainer to me. They have marching bands at funerals (no mention intended of most of the rest of the Saints history) and of course When the Saints Go Marching In and all that jazz (literally!) make for an excellent fit for a pro football marching band in the Big Easy.

While such isn't (yet) the case, they have embraced and interesting, if not unlikely, band-esque tradition. This season, the Ying Yang Twins' Halftime (often known by its refrain, "Stand Up and Get Crunk") became a jock rock favorite in the Superdome. As its football-intermission moniker may suggest, Halftime is punctuated by a (synthesized) low brass bassline and has a distinctly HBCU marching band feel to it. I don't know why this song was put back into rotation five years after its 2004 release, but it sparked new life in Who Dat Nation and maybe, just maybe, its high-stepping appeal helped the Saints march into a championship.