I put up the lyrics of “A Dying Cub Fan’s Last Request,” never thinking that anyone would take it as something I wrote. (I mean, seriously, it’s *waaaay* out of my league.) It was written by songwriter / singer Steve Goodman. He is best known nationally as the composer of “The City of New Orleans,” a song that was a huge hit for Arlo Guthrie, and has since been covered by such singers as Johnny Cash and Willie Nelson. The morning show Good Morning America took its title from the song’s chorus, and thus remains a sort of tribute to him.
Steve–and I use his first name because any Cubs fan who’s heard “A Dying Cubs Fan’s Last Request” knows that he was their brother–is better known to younger fans of the Cubs Nation (if at all) as the writer and performer of the rather more Upbeat “Go Cubs Go”, which he composed for the then seemingly destined-for-greatness 1984 team. The song reemerged in a big way this year as the Cubs’ anthem, played over the PA and sung by the fans whenever we won at home this year. In case you’re wondering, they didn’t play it after last Saturday’s game.
Sadly, Steve died shortly before the ’84 Cubs clinched the division…and slightly less shortly before they blew the League Championship. He had lekeumia, and passed away at the grotesquely tender age of 36. The song I quoted thus has a very real dark side; as funny as it is, it’s also an ackowledgement of the bleak, hopeless existance of the fans of the North Side. Steve no doubt wrote that song with hope that it wouldn’t be about him personally, but it was, and was equally about thousands and thousands of other yearningly hopeful, hopelessly embittered souls.
Most would say it’s a tragedy that Steve died so young and thus before he would ever see his beloved Cubs win a World Series. And tragic it is, but moreso, perhaps, for the fact that had God granted him another 23 years of life (and counting), he still would have been so denied.
This is the lot of all Cubs fans, myself included. Perhaps I will live long enough to see the Cubbies enter the Holy Lands, but chances are I’ll be like the hundreds of thousands of fans before me who lived and died denied of their dream. These are the people my heart goes out to this year, those that have come and gone before me, and especially those elderly fans for whom this was a last chance to see their dream come true.
Here’s to you, Steve. I hope you are indeed having a better time watching the Angels.
