An open letter to Petey Pablo

The Panthers need your help.

You hail from Greenville and are inexorably linked to our fine state thanks to your masterpiece (nay, magnum opus) “Raise Up.” If the song most tied with the state of North Carolina for anyone under the age of 40 isn’t “Raise Up,” then I don’t know what is.

This is where the Panthers come in. As you probably know, they’re having a great year.

But there’s one problem. A truly great team needs a truly great fight song and the Panthers’ current song is…less than great. It’s not that it’s too corny. Corny can be good.

It’s that it isn’t old-timey enough to be endearing, and not catchy enough to be enjoyable. It’s like drinking a milkshake that has melted to room temperature. It’s still tasty and contains the right mix of ingredients, but you can just imagine how great it would be if it was just a little bit better.

That’s where you can help.

Mr. Pablo, I maintain that your masterwork, Raise Up, is close to the perfect anthem for the Panthers in its current form, and with a few minor tweaks could be the ideal song for the Panthers to adopt as their new Fight Song.

I would never be so bold as to suggest an accomplished artist such as yourself modify their work to satisfy corporate purposes. However, I view making a few small changes in this case as an opportunity to appeal to an audience that remains close to the core of the original song, those hailing from North Carolina and its environs, albeit folks that could do without some of the edgier language.

The benefits to the Panthers and their fans are many, but I think this rewrite would be beneficial to you as well. Your recent appearance on the hit Fox show “Empire” because Terrence Howard owed you $200 notwithstanding, it seems rebooting this song, for this reason, during this wildly successful year for the Panthers, could be just the spark you need to return your career to its prior and rightful glory.

Below is a crude draft of the original lyrics, rewritten to add a few drops of Panthers flavor, on which I hope we can build for the greater good of the great state of North Carolina:

Go Carolina! C’mon and raise up
Take your shirt off, twist it ’round yo head
Spin it like a helicopter
Go Carolina! C’mon and raise up
This one’s for you, uh-huh, this one’s for who?
Us, us, us; yes sir!
Who are we? P-Cats gonna truck ya!
First to cheer on old Carolina
Seen hard times, it’s been worth it
We got superstars, division titles
First one in ’96 (seen it ‘cuz)
Black and blue on the front and back
Linebacker in the middle, make quarterbacks go eh-eh
But it ain’t ’bout that
It’s about gettin TDs and drivin back down here behind the
Big fellas (six fellas)
NFC South, I’m tired of y’all
Polk, Bladen, Marshall, Hoke, Greene County, Timbaland, hey!,
Transfer, Sandy Ridge, Browns over here (greens over here)
Pasqoutank, down on the, Odom East (lemme think)
Johnson County, Franklin, Burgaw, Newport, Warren, Shelby, Kenansville
(Man Catawba) Tarboro, Triangle, Goldsboro, Halifax, Statesville
And all the fans in the upper deck
This right here, right here, right here’s for
Chorus
Uhh, uh-huh, uh-huh, beat em, beat em
You remember them days y’all, we used to play y’all
In Clemson ‘fore we went up the interstate y’all
But now we (Rep Queen City, Rep Queen City!)*
Runnin through Bearden Park
just before the fan-fest jumped off (hah!)
My house, my home, my hood (hah!)
My brother, my sister, my cous’ (hah!)
The fans that was there from the beginin
been wit me even ‘fore they knew what bein with me was
You fans just glanced at it, now I gotcha starin at it
Wouldn’t been the same with ol’ Carolina, it’s been then
Haters just gettin it, oh it’s a shame isn’t it?
Oh you thought we said we were comin wit a whole lotta songs
we were jokin’! (ahh!)

I look forward to hearing your thoughts on a potential collaboration and moving forward on this project. Please send any positive feedback via twitter.com to @thetrolleywalk and any contract demands or complaints to ted[at]charlotteagenda.com.

Keep Pounding,

TW

*this part could be used as interstitials within the stadium PA, for the purpose of encouraging the crowd before big third down plays and such