Let’s Look Back At Legendary NHL Tough Guy Dave Schultz’s Song About Sitting In The Penalty Box
The Internet is a weird place. You cruise around the web and you have no clue what you're going to end up seeing.
Like today. I thought my eyeballs were going to get pelted with a barrage of Spotify Wrappeds, letting me know how bad everyone's taste in music is (mine was splendid as per usual, though), and while that was kind of true, I was also treated to bit of musical goodness courtesy of Dave "The Hammer" Schultz.
Yes, that Dave "The Hammer' Schultz.
Bardown — which is a great follow on social media; they post a ton of cool stuff — shared the legendary NHL enforcer's foray into the world of music with a song called "The Penalty Box."
If you want to listen to the song without having to flip through an Instagram post for the sake of musical integrity, I've got you, pal:
I will not lie: I love this.
Sure, it's no secret that I'm a Philadelphia Flyers fan and had Schultz arm-farted "Polly Wolly Doodle" and put that out as a forty-five, I'd still be like, "Hey, how 'bout that? Pretty good!"
But that tune is pretty cool and came out when the Broad Street Bullies were at the height of their powers. So, a Dave Schultz song about sitting in the sin bin — a place he knew well considering he had 2,294 penalty minutes in 534 games which he spent with the Flyers, Kings, Penguins, and Sabres — made a lot of sense.
There's a lot of goodness on the lyrical front, but this verse contains some of the best I've ever heard:
- You got me chargin' and cookin', holdin' and hookin'And then you blow the whistle on meWhen you gonna let me go free?Don't you know how slow go the penalty clocksAnd their tickity tocks in the penalty box
That is art, kids.
I also found the guitar chords for the song, so I can assure you that someone's fiance is about to hear this ad nauseam…
…that someone would be me.
I wish novelty songs like this would become a thing again. It seemed like if you had any notoriety in the ‘70s or ’80s, it was your duty to put out a record.
Rodney Dangerfield did it. Eddie Murphy did it.
There were songs about Pac-Man. There was a song where Ray Jay Johnson did the same one joke of his over and over again.
There was even a song where someone said, "Hey wouldn't it be funny if John Wayne rapped?"
And it turns out that it is, in fact, hilarious… although I don't know that the song needed to be six minutes long. It could have been three and the joke would have come across just as clear.
Anyway, I hope someday we can go back to this sort of stuff because it's just fun, and I don't know about you, but I like stuff that's fun.