{"id":80383,"date":"2026-01-07T16:55:19","date_gmt":"2026-01-07T16:55:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/80383\/"},"modified":"2026-01-07T16:55:19","modified_gmt":"2026-01-07T16:55:19","slug":"how-a-pittsburgh-musician-has-updated-the-steelers-anthem-for-30-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/80383\/","title":{"rendered":"How a Pittsburgh musician has updated the Steelers anthem for 30 years"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\tFor over three decades, Pittsburgh native Roger Wood has been creating a refreshed version of the Steelers&#8217; anthem &#8220;Here We Go,&#8221; a song that has become synonymous with the team&#8217;s playoff runs.&#8221;It&#8217;s the soundtrack of a playoff run in Pittsburgh &#8211; catchy, familiar, and re-written just enough to feel brand new,&#8221; Wood said. He begins working on the song when he&#8217;s confident the Steelers will make the playoffs. &#8220;What happened this year\u2014it was right before the Cleveland game,&#8221; he said.Wood waits until the moment is right because the lyrics must match the current season. &#8220;The one line was &#8216;Aaron Rodgers is ready to win with Gainwell, Metcalf and Washington.&#8217; But Washington broke his arm in the Cleveland game, so I had to think of another rhyme,&#8221; he explained. Thankfully, he found a solution, and the Steelers&#8217; victory over the Ravens allowed the song to continue.Wood and his son, music producer Ryan Wood, completed this year&#8217;s version in their Cheswick studio the following day. Ryan pushed his father for several takes until it was &#8220;playoff ready.&#8221; &#8220;My voice\u2026 you don&#8217;t realize you&#8217;re not warmed up &#8211; you don&#8217;t sing all year. So it took a little longer to get it. And my son Ryan, who&#8217;s producing and recording everything, he&#8217;s like, &#8216;Well you gotta do a little better than that&#8217;\u2026 we get a couple dozen of them\u2026 I finally got it, you know?&#8221; Wood said.The song&#8217;s enduring appeal lies in its catchy nature and dynamic build-up.  The origin of the song is as Pittsburgh as it gets. Wood wrote it in just 20 minutes. &#8220;I was at a piano. And I got the bassline. And the melody just popped in my head\u2026 the &#8216;duh duh duh duh.&#8217; It felt like someone was telling me what to do. Then I put the words to it. And yeah, that was it,&#8221; he said.Now, as the playoffs approach, so does the song, blasting in the Strip District, in stores, and on repeat in cars across the region.\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\tPITTSBURGH \u2014 \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>For over three decades, Pittsburgh native Roger Wood has been creating a refreshed version of the Steelers&#8217; anthem &#8220;Here We Go,&#8221; a song that has become synonymous with the team&#8217;s playoff runs.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s the soundtrack of a playoff run in Pittsburgh &#8211; catchy, familiar, and re-written just enough to feel brand new,&#8221; Wood said. He begins working on the song when he&#8217;s confident the Steelers will make the playoffs. &#8220;What happened this year\u2014it was right before the Cleveland game,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p>Wood waits until the moment is right because the lyrics must match the current season.<\/p>\n<p> &#8220;The one line was &#8216;Aaron Rodgers is ready to win with Gainwell, Metcalf and Washington.&#8217; But Washington broke his arm in the Cleveland game, so I had to think of another rhyme,&#8221; he explained. <\/p>\n<p>Thankfully, he found a solution, and the Steelers&#8217; victory over the Ravens allowed the song to continue.<\/p>\n<p>Wood and his son, music producer Ryan Wood, completed this year&#8217;s version in their Cheswick studio the following day. <\/p>\n<p>Ryan pushed his father for several takes until it was &#8220;playoff ready.&#8221; <\/p>\n<p>&#8220;My voice\u2026 you don&#8217;t realize you&#8217;re not warmed up &#8211; you don&#8217;t sing all year. So it took a little longer to get it. And my son Ryan, who&#8217;s producing and recording everything, he&#8217;s like, &#8216;Well you gotta do a little better than that&#8217;\u2026 we get a couple dozen of them\u2026 I finally got it, you know?&#8221; Wood said.<\/p>\n<p>The song&#8217;s enduring appeal lies in its catchy nature and dynamic build-up.  <\/p>\n<p>The origin of the song is as Pittsburgh as it gets. Wood wrote it in just 20 minutes. <\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I was at a piano. And I got the bassline. And the melody just popped in my head\u2026 the &#8216;duh duh duh duh.&#8217; It felt like someone was telling me what to do. Then I put the words to it. And yeah, that was it,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p>Now, as the playoffs approach, so does the song, blasting in the Strip District, in stores, and on repeat in cars across the region.  <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For over three decades, Pittsburgh native Roger Wood has been creating a refreshed version of the Steelers&#8217; anthem&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":80384,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[40765,40766,73,75,40767,74,40768,40769,40770,40771,2731],"class_list":["post-80383","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pittsburgh","tag-cheswick-studio","tag-here-we-go","tag-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh-headlines","tag-pittsburgh-music","tag-pittsburgh-news","tag-playoff-song","tag-roger-wood","tag-ryan-wood","tag-steelers-anthem","tag-strip-district"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80383","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=80383"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80383\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/80384"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=80383"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=80383"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=80383"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}