Sports teams and players, in general, have not been known to cause musings of any artistic value. However, if you’re a fan of the Kansas City Royals you must be pleased with your team this year. First, you had the random drunk guy doing the Truffle Shuffle, and then Royals fans were treated to Fountain Girl. But, you rarely see chart-topping hits sparked to fruition by your favorite sports team. Let alone any team from Kansas City. But that’s exactly what happened in the case of Lorde’s Royals.
Somehow, way back when, in the land of Hobbits, Lorde saw a copy of a National Geographic that had the following photo in between its covers:
Yet, Lorde did not know who Brett was or why he was signing baseballs. She just saw the word Royals on his shirt, liked it, and then wrote a song titled that. Pretty crazy. Going further down the rabbit hole, none of this would not have been possible to find out, though, if the Kansas City Royals had not been terrible for so long. Apparently, this is the only photo in the National Geographic archives with a baseball player from the Royals signing baseballs. Not that it’s that rare (it might be), but there is little doubt in anyone’s mind had it been a Yankee there would have been multiple photos.
So, there you have it. New Zealander Lorde wrote her song about George Brett and the Kansas City Royals. Maybe it was written as a warning to all free agents to never sign there. Who knows? All we know is that her next song should be titled Pine Tar. Just saying.
About Andrew Conway