The best song for a team to run on the pitch to, according to The Hold Steady’s Craig Finn

That would be my beloved Minnesota Vikings, who come on to the field to Immigrant Song by Led Zeppelin. That’s often the best part of the game, with the first line “I come from the land of the ice and snow”, which describes Minnesota, and the line about “Valhalla, I am coming”. They have a viking on a Harley come out and then they chase behind it – it’s actually pretty impressive. I wouldn’t call the soundsystem shit hot, but it gets pretty loud. It’s a supercharged part of the game – and the fans have been drinking for five hours by that point. They introduced it some time in the 90s – before then, they used to have this chintzy “Go Vikings! Let’s win the game”, 50s or 60s rock ’em sock ’em kind of thing that wasn’t nearly as impressive or contemporary. Admittedly, Immigrant Song is 45 years old, but for the crowd of 40-something white people, that’s contemporary. A song that would be great as an entrance would be Paranoid by Black Saabbath, at least in tone if not in content. I always think that’s the ultimate in driving guitar songs. There’s a song by Jawbreaker, the 90s emo punks, that they always used to play first. Before the record actually came out, we thought it was a theme song because the chorus went: “Are you out there? Do you hear me?” It sounded as though it would be great for a sports team. But actually it’s called Do You Hate Me and its about a girl.

Via The Guardian