The Best of Wikipedia

Can music change the world? Mr. Feelings thinks so. That's the focus of this week's The Best of Wikipedia, Roundball Rock.

If you watch the NBA, then there is a John Tesh shaped void in your heart. That's because the rousing score written by Mr. Tesh that accompanied every network telecast between 1990 and 2002, Roundball Rock, was dropped when the National Basketball Association signed broadcast rights over to those figure skating fans at ABC. Tune into a game now, and you'll get bombarded by a piss-tastatic song from The Pussy Cat Dolls.

Read more on Tesh and the NBA after the jump...

But for those brief dozen years, life was sweet. Michael Jordan dominated the game, the US men's basketball team was amazing, and John Tesh's new age music was a sweet siren call to camp out in front of the boob-tube for three hours at a time.


This clip brings back so many wonderfully painful memories

The story behind the song is legendary. John Tesh was cycling through Pau competing in the Tour de France, when, during an endorphin generated hallucination, he saw before him none other than Kareem, The Captain, Abdul-Jabar riding a great white steed. He opened his mouth, and from it flooded forth a light brighter than the a billion suns. A chorus rang out. Tesh originally called this song, The Dirge of the Apocalypse (As Told to Me by Kareem Abdul-Jabar).

An artist interpretation of Tesh's vision
Tesh stopped at a pay phone and sang the tune into his home answering machine. The machine promptly melted under the power of the music, and Tesh was forced to lay the track down once more with the aid of the Los Angeles Philharmonic. Only three orchestra members survived to tell the tale.

Shocked no one wanted to buy his apocalyptic tune, Tesh fiddled with the tempo and the dirge become an upbeat fight song re-titled Roundball Rock. NBC scooped up the anthem for its new baby, the NBA, and the rest is history.

Of course controversy still courts the song wherever it is played. Tesh himself admits he tried to use a pseudonym when shopping the song due to the lyric's graphic descriptions of the end of times. A 2006 performance of the song led to riots between Christians and Muslims throughout the streets of Hamburg, Germany. Even more troubling, the song was performed thousands of miles away in Melbourne, Australia.

Tesh has vowed never to write another song for fear the next single might beckon the earth one step closer to doom. That, and he admits everything else he's written is new age jerk-off crap. But he boasts Roundball Rock still gets him laid. Bravo, Mr. Tesh. Bravo.