{"id":642256,"date":"2026-05-02T04:06:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-02T04:06:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/642256\/"},"modified":"2026-05-02T04:06:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-02T04:06:08","slug":"boxing-the-sweet-science-in-15-songs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/642256\/","title":{"rendered":"Boxing, the Sweet Science, in 15 Songs"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Once was a time that boxing ranked among the most popular professional sports in the United States, arguably second only to baseball in the first half of the 20th century, its triumphs and tragedies, whether fact or fiction, finding expression in the culture ever since. There have been paintings (George Bellows\u2019 Dempsey and Firpo comes immediately to mind) and plays (Golden Boy, The Great White Hope) and too many films to mention. Jazz trumpet masters Miles Davis<\/a> and Wynton Marsalis have each recorded soundtracks to documentaries devoted to the first Black heavyweight champion, Jack Johnson, and another great trumpeter, Terence Blanchard, composed the recent opera Champion about welterweight Emile Griffith and the aftermath of his fatal bout with Benny \u201cKid\u201d Paret.<\/p>\n

Many boxers have made records outside the ring as well\u2014in recording studios\u2014among them Muhammad Ali (when he still went by Cassius Clay), Sugar Ray Robinson, Joe Frazier, Roy Jones Jr. and Manny Pacquiao. And then there was Ernie Terrell, whose sister Jean sang in his band, Ernie Terrell and the Heavyweights, before replacing Diana Ross as lead singer of the Supremes. Not to mention the Hall of Famers James Brown and Jackie Wilson<\/a>, who tried their hand at boxing before turning, far more successfully, to singing (and dancing). So, given these interrelationships, it should come as no surprise that boxing, in turn, has inspired the following 15 songs, some factual, others fictional, about the so-called sweet science and its practitioners.<\/p>\n

The Dixieaires\u2014\u201cJoe Louis Is A Fightin\u2019 Man\u201d\u2014In 2001, Rounder Records released a compilation called Joe Louis: An American Hero, composed of 17 songs celebrating the Brown Bomber, heavyweight champion from 1937 to 1949. Among the artists included were Cab Calloway, Paul Robeson with Count Basie, Memphis Minnie, Sonny Boy Williamson I and the Dixieaires, principally a gospel group featuring lead singer Caleb Ginyard, who subsequently joined the doo-wop Du Droppers and, later still, the Golden Gate Quartet of gospel renown.<\/p>\n

Garland Jeffreys\u2014\u201cKing of Glove\u201d\u2014In which Garland Jeffreys rap-sings the praises of Joe Louis, released in 2023 on Under the Bed, a collection of previously unreleased material, well after but perhaps inspired by the aforementioned Rounder compilation.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Simon and Garfunkel\u2014\u201cThe Boxer\u201d\u2014A top 10 hit in 1970 from Bridge Over Troubled Water, the duo\u2019s final studio album, it can be taken literally as Paul Simon\u2019s ode to the evolution of a journeyman fighter or metaphorically as representative of the struggles of the common man or even autobiographically, as its writer has sometimes suggested. Later, a country hit for Emmylou Harris.<\/p>\n

Bruce Springsteen\u2014\u201cThe Hitter\u201d\u2014From The Boss\u2019 2005 album Devils & Dust. If \u201cThe Boxer\u201d is taken literally then \u201cThe Hitter\u201d might be the next chapter in that journeyman fighter\u2019s story.<\/p>\n

Morrissey\u2014\u201cBoxers\u201d\u2014A hit single in the U.K. in early 1995 and added to the former Smith\u2019s The World of Morrissey collection shortly thereafter, in which a journeyman\u2019s career reaches its almost inevitable denouement: \u201closing in front of your home crowd.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pete Seeger\u2014\u201cWho Killed Davey Moore?\u201d\u2014Davey Moore was the featherweight champion from 1959 to 1963 and died four days after losing his belt to Sugar Ramos. Written by Bob Dylan in 1963, whose recording of the song went unreleased until 1991\u2019s The Bootleg Series Volumes 1-3 (Rare & Unreleased) 1961-1991. Up until that time it was best known in this version from Pete Seeger\u2019s We Shall Overcome: Recorded Live at His Historic Carnegie Hall Concert 1963.<\/p>\n

Johnny Wakelin and the Kinshasa Band\u2014\u201cBlack Superman-Muhammad Ali\u201d\u2014A 1975 hit single recorded after the \u201cRumble in the Jungle,\u201d Ali\u2019s victory over George Foreman in Zaire the previous year, based on Wakelin\u2019s earlier record \u201cHungarian Superman (Joe Bugner),\u201d a tribute to the British-Australian boxer of that name, an Hungarian refugee.<\/p>\n

Related: Did you know Muhammad Ali played the piano?<\/a><\/p>\n

Mark Knopfler\u2014\u201cSong for Sonny Liston\u201d\u2014A ballad recounting the troubled life of the fighter beaten by Muhammad Ali (then Cassius Clay) in what was at the time, in 1963, the greatest upset of all time, written and recorded by the erstwhile Dire Straits frontman for his fourth solo album, 2004\u2019s Shangri-La.<\/p>\n

Ben Folds Five\u2014\u201cBoxing\u201d\u2014An imagined conversation between a past-his-prime Muhammad Ali and the ABC sportscaster Howard Cosell, from Ben Folds Five, the band\u2019s 1995 debut album, and subsequently covered by Bette Midler.<\/p>\n

Bob Dylan\u2014\u201cHurricane\u201d\u2014Dylan\u2014who has been known to spar a few rounds himself\u2014again, this time with co-writer Jacques Levy on the saga of middleweight Rubin \u201cHurricane\u201d Carter, charged with murder in 1966, convicted the following year and sentenced to life in prison. The song \u201cHurricane,\u201d from the 1975 album Desire, brought renewed attention to Carter\u2019s case and his sentence was finally overturned in 1985.<\/p>\n

DJ Jazzy Jeff & the Fresh Prince\u2014\u201cI Think I Can Beat Mike Tyson\u201d\u2014When this comic rap hit from the album And In This Corner\u2026 was released in 1989, Mike Tyson was in the midst of his seemingly invincible reign as undefeated heavyweight champion from 1987 to 1990, the youngest to ever wear the crown, and the Fresh Prince had yet to hit Hollywood, re-branded as TV and movie star Will Smith, who starred as Muhammad Ali in the 2001 biopic Ali and \u201cfought\u201d host Chris Rock to a draw at the 2022 Oscars.<\/p>\n

The Killers\u2014\u201cTyson vs. Douglas\u201d\u2014Rocky Marciano was the only heavyweight to retire a champion. The heretofore undefeated Mike Tyson inexplicably met his match in 1990, losing to the unheralded (and overweight) underdog Buster Douglas in what is now the biggest upset in boxing history. From the band\u2019s 2017 release Wonderful Wonderful, this song reflects the perspective of lead Killer Brandon Flowers watching the fight on pay-per-view TV as an eight-year-old.<\/p>\n

Warren Zevon\u2014\u201cBoom Boom Mancini\u201d\u2014This song, from Zevon\u2019s 1987 album Sentimental Hygiene, chronicles Ray \u201cBoom Boom\u201d Mancini\u2019s up-and-down quest for the lightweight crown, citing his matches with Bobby Chacon (a win), Arturo Frias (another win and the championship), Alexis Arguello (a loss) and culminates with a win versus Duk Loo Kim, who succumbed to the injuries suffered in the fight immediately following its conclusion.<\/p>\n

Nils Lofgren\u2014\u201cNo Mercy\u201d\u2014From Nils, his 1979 Bob Ezrin-produced album, a description of the intensity and brutality of prize fighting. Its line \u201cI fight back tears while I destroy his life\u201d calls to mind the deaths of Davey Moore, Benny \u201cKid\u201d Paret, Duke Koo Kim and so many others like them whose lives ended in the ring.<\/p>\n

Sting\u2014\u201cThe Night the Pugilist Learned How to Dance\u201d\u2014There\u2019s a happier ending for a journeyman fighter in this number from Sting\u2019s 2013 Broadway musical The Last Ship. He applies his boxing skills to learn to dance and win the woman he would one day marry. As told to their child.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Once was a time that boxing ranked among the most popular professional sports in the United States, arguably…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":642257,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[447],"tags":[239364,239365,703,239366,239367,49,48,239368,82],"class_list":["post-642256","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-best-classic-bands","tag-bob-dylan-hurricane","tag-boxing","tag-boxing-songs-list","tag-bruce-springsteen-hitter","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-simon-garfunkel-boxer","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/642256","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=642256"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/642256\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/642257"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=642256"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=642256"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=642256"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}