Amazin' Astley (and the Mets)

Beginning last year, the New York Mets played “Sweet Caroline” for a Sing-a-Long before the eighth inning at Shea Stadium. The only problem is that…the Red Sox already use that song for essentially the same purpose.

This year, the Mets allowed fans to vote for what should be the new song, and here were the choices:


As you can see from the “Other” choice, there’s already a filled in selection, courtesy of Gothamist: “Never Gonna Give You Up” by Rick Astley. Here’s what I wrote about Astley’s video for that song in August:

One of the great two-hit wonders (thank you, reader) from the 1980s would have to be Rick Astley. While that name might not ring a bell, his picture probably will. His hit was "Never Gonna Give You Up" and the most striking thing about it is that...he sounds black. Yes, the pasty, ginger kid sounds like a black soul singer—one with a limited amount of rhythm, but it's still rather impressive.

The websites FARK.com and Digg.com launched a campaign to get “Never Gonna Give You Up” to be the Shea Stadium choice, and they’ve gotten over five million people to vote for it. That’s very impressive—even if most of them aren’t Mets fans, but rather fans of Astley and the Rickroll, which Wikipedia describes as:

“A prank and Internet meme involving the music video for the 1987 Rick Astley song "Never Gonna Give You Up". In a rickroll, a person provides a link they claim is relevant to the topic at hand which actually takes the user to the Astley video. It can also mean playing the song loudly in public in order to be disruptive. A person who falls for the prank is said to be "rickrolled". In some cases, this term is also used to describe a person who merely hears the song.”

During today's opening day (the final at Shea Stadium), they'll play Astley's tune before the eighth, followed by “Living on a Prayer” by Bon Jovi tomorrow, “I’m a Believer” by the Monkees on Thursday, Billy Joel’s “Movin’ Out” on Friday, “Sweet Caroline” on Saturday, and “Build Me Up Buttercup” on Sunday.

None of those songs do much for me, but in terms of guilty pleasures (especially when singing along with 50,000 other Mets fans), I voted for, what else?, "Never Gonna Give You Up."