There’s talk of playing Spooky Rocky Top when Alabama comes to Neyland. Nothing confirmed. The rumor is “unverified yet verified,” according to “insiders” on Tennessee’s big three message boards: VolQuest, VolNation, and the CheckerBoard.

In a rare moment of message-board harmony, the “insiders” on all three boards agree on Spooky Rocky Top. Normally, these guys post under different usernames on each board, feeding contradictory information to confuse opposing fans and unsuspecting newbs.

Spooky Rocky Top is the Osborne Brothers dragged through an Appalachian ghost story. The banjo slows to a crawl. The harmonies sound like they’re coming from the same holler where those two strangers went missing. You can practically smell the wet leaves and fresh graves.

Listen for yourself, volume up:

Half these old Tennessee boys are ready to knock holes in their living rooms. The other half reacts like somebody just wheeled a Hammond organ into a Church of Christ Sunday service.

Can’t have that shit. We want Bama.

Picture Kalen DeBoer on the visitors’ sideline, refusing yet again to dress like an Alabama football coach. Bear Bryant had the houndstooth. Nick Saban looked like he owned the stadium and everybody in it. DeBoer shows up in bargain-bin crimson, dressed like the assistant manager at Tire Express.

Bammers can’t decide whether to fire him or buy him a classy polo.

Then there’s his patented vacant stare of a man who has just been asked to change the printer toner, reset the Wi-Fi, and explain why the copier keeps jamming.

Meanwhile, 100,000 Tennessee fans are singing along to a haunted-house version of Rocky Top.

And somewhere on Tennessee’s message boards, men who haven’t changed their furnace filters since the Obama administration are preparing to regulate the music at Neyland Stadium.

ROCKY TOP HAS SURVIVED WORSE

Tennessee runs through a giant T, checkerboards an entire stadium, and sings about a woman who’s half bear and half cat. Two strangers go looking for a moonshine still and never come home.

In East Tennessee and parts of Nashville little children sing this at birthday parties.

In 2006, LWS devoted part of The 5 Most Retarded SEC Traditions to the “woo” in Rocky Top. Its origin story featured Mary Francis Henderson, a Phi Mu at the 1976 Vanderbilt game, seven vodka-and-Tabs deep, announcing:

“Oh my God, Rocky Top needs to be more sassy!”

The writer’s assessment:

“the ‘woo’ crashes over me like Oprah on skis.”

Mary Francis is probably a grandmother now, still yelling it from Section V while her grandson pretends they’re complete strangers.

Twenty years later, somebody slowed the banjo until it sounded like a funeral procession.

At least Mary Francis had been drinking.

VOLQUEST’S OCTOBER ORDEAL

TennEC_2022 wondered where Spooky Rocky Top came from—possibly a TikTok edit.

Miles Kredich created it in 2022. Neyland played it against Kentucky that Halloween.

Four years later, grown men are still trying to get the banjo placed under adult supervision.

IMACSAVOL replied:

“One of the dumbest things ever.”

Apparently that understated the damage. He returned:

“It’s so stupid, makes me cringe every time I hear that stupid BS.”

A Halloween rendition of Rocky Top has made this man’s life worse.

He hasn’t been this disgusted since somebody put a QR code on the church bulletin.

Cobb_Webb wasn’t impressed either:

“I don’t go postal over it or anything. It’s just a ‘meh’ response.”

A man capable of disliking a song without making it the family’s problem. An endangered species.

Pawpaw asked:

“I simply don’t understand how someone can dislike spooky rocky top.”

Give IMACSAVOL time, Pawpaw. He probably objects to Easter egg hunts, too. Plastic eggs, free candy, children taking something home without earning it.

Somewhere near Whitwell a middle-aged man has three smoke detectors chirping, a garage refrigerator leaking onto the concrete, and a detailed opinion about Neyland’s musical standards.

The house can wait. Tennessee football needs him.

AUTHORIZATION TO ENJOY YOURSELF

Trippnvol has a plan:

“Should be used in 4th quarter on huge 3rd down plays only…. keep it cool.”

Not ordinary third downs. Huge third downs.

Somebody at Neyland will have to decide whether third-and-two qualifies as huge or if Spooky requires seven yards and a deficit approved by the booth.

The same fan base that can’t agree on whether a 5-1 head coach should be fired or canonized has appointed itself the stadium’s entertainment committee.

Aldo_Raine takes the less complicated view:

“Spooky Rocky Top and 3rd Down for What are both awesome…”

He recalled Neyland getting so loud you could barely hear the music.

A perfectly reasonable observation. Naturally, it has no place in this discussion.

Meanwhile, the Vols enthusiasts have begun forty-yard sprints between the kitchen island and the garage refrigerator.

One pulled a hamstring making a double-move on his Labrador retriever. Another has texted his high-school defensive coordinator to ask whether eligibility ever expires.

Their wives are checking urgent-care hours.

FIRST THE BUTTERFLY. NOW THE BANJO.

The Dolly Parton butterfly sticker weighed less than a gram. When the UTAD added it to the helmets, it nearly broke some of these same men.

Now they’ve been handed a haunted banjo.

If Neyland plays Spooky Rocky Top against Alabama, the VolQuest, CheckerBoard, and VolNation experts will have instructions.

Third downs. Short yardage. Only after Jim Knowles stops Bama, assuming they haven’t kicked his old ass to the curb by halftime.

Old Coach U, still dining out on his time around Mack Brown, had some thoughts:

“When I was around Mack, we didn’t need haunted-house music to get boys fired up. You wanted a spooky noise, you heard the other team’s pads cracking in pregame warmups. That was your music. I remember telling Mack that myself.”

Youth pastor and Old Coach protege JasonVols22 had a question for his mentor, Old Coach U:

“If we do the spooky rockytop against bama on third downs does it effect the quarter backing audibles because the noises is also ours and would it be better to save it for after a touchdown when they can’t hear us anyway?”

Nobody answered because they didn’t understand.

Trippnvol was still trying to determine whether the third down was huge enough.

Play Spooky Rocky Top against Alabama.

Play it loud. Let the banjo upset the Church of Christers.

And if IMACSAVOL cringes, play it again.

Based on real public Tennessee message-board discussions.

Related reading

The 5 Most Retarded SEC Traditions — the original “woo” origin story.

Dolly Comes Home to Neyland. The Vols Nation Splits. — a butterfly brings grown men to grief.

The Vols Message Board Evening Shift Clocks In on the Smokey Greys — another harmless Tennessee tradition attracts supervision.