Go and Lay Your Hand on a Pittsburgh Steelers Fan!

This evening my husband was searching for songs to download on his new mp3 player. His main goal was to find game songs -- you know, those songs that pump you up for the game?! We compiled a list of Pens songs and Steelers songs over the course of several years of going to games and he's been downloading most of the night. One of the songs wasn't one we had talked about, but I was familiar with by the Charlie Daniels Band called "In America." It was written in the 80's and is about the Iranian Hostage Crisis and America's patriotism. The song features the following line:

You just go and lay your hand
On a Pittsburgh Steelers' fan
And I think you're gonna finally understand

My husband was curious as to how it came to be in the song, so he did a little more research on the song and found this on Songfacts.com which I think is really interesting so I thought I'd share it with you (part of a Q&A on the Charlie Daniels Band webpage):

SF: And a Pittsburgh Steelers fan? The line, “Lay your hand on a Pittsburgh Steelers fan…”

Charlie: Yeah, I’ve gone to ball games at different places, but I’ve always felt the Pittsburgh Steelers fans, especially in the old stadium, they were just… I used to go do the National Anthem there sometimes. I mean, they’re steel workers and they’re good old guys with blisters, or calluses on their hands. The salt of the earth, the finest, just the greatest people, the strength of America. The strength of America is not in Washington, D.C. It’s in our people, it’s on the farms, in the factories. It’s the people out here that make this country work. The truck drivers, the farmers. And these people – that’s what they were, and I just felt like if you want to go to war, let me take some of these guys with me. Go lay your hand on a Pittsburgh Steelers fan, and you’re gonna find out what American anger is, because it’s the kind of people they are.

VERY COOL, Charlie!