Homegrown hit

“They have pretty much adopted me as their ‘thing’ for San Diego,” says Encinitas songwriter Paul Cannon of the Padres embracing his “Homegrown (Padres Version)” team theme. “I wrote the song that has been on TV for the KPRI commercial where it says ‘San Dieego’... I just rewrote that song and signed a two-year deal with the Padres so they could use it. They filmed a music video for it and are now playing it at the stadium between innings.”

The Padres have long played certain songs to accompany individual players taking or leaving the field, like AC/DC’S “Hell’s Bells” (Trevor Hoffman), P. Diddy’s “Bad Boy for Life” (Jeff Cirillo), and Metallica’s “Enter Sandman” (Rod Beck), and the team sometimes adopts an existing theme song for the season, such as the Bravery’s “Believe.” Various unofficial theme songs have come and gone, including Eddie Moore’s “San Diego Padres Song” (“Rock on Padre nation, to a whole new generation”), Chuck Schiele’s “Let’s Go Padres” (which the one-time Grams frontman recorded with Craig Yerkes and Simeon Flick), Tony Bantay’s “Go Padres,” Eric Show’s “Padres Win Again,” and the San Diego Sports Band’s “Super Fun Padres Fight Song.”

Cannon’s original “Homegrown” tune was redone for the team. “We re-recorded a demo of our concept and I emailed the song and [the KPRI] TV commercial to every employee at the Padres’ front offices. This prompted a conversation with [Padres] production and opened the doors for the creation of the new version.” Cannon then wrote new “Homegrown” lyrics and returned to the studio to cut the final track, referencing specific players like Trevor Hoffman (whose number 51 was retired by the team) and working with Grammy Award–winning producer Steve Churchyard: “If the ball goes deep and we win, we’ll pay tribute to Tony Gwynn, in our own hometown, San Diego, with our own home team, Padres. If the other team gets another run, we’ll close out like number 51.”

Cannon maintains ownership of the song. “Royalties will be collected through BMI. The team will use the video as their official victory song, and the video plays after every winning game…. The song has been released as a single [and] we have an instrumental version, karaoke version, ringtone, and a full-length available.”

The Paul Cannon Band appears at the Belly Up on Saturday, August 24.