Today is Superbowl Sunday, so it’s only fitting that today’s classic song of the day is built around a football theme. The song is “Backfield in Motion” by Mel and Tim, released in September of 1969, just in time for the start of the fall football season. The track peaked at #10 on the Billboard Hot 100 and #12 on the Cash Box Top 100. It went all the way to #3 on Billboard’s Best Selling Soul Singles chart.
“Backfield in Motion” was written by by Mel and Tim themselves and employs all manner of sporting metaphors to describe the relationship between a man and his lover. In case you were wondering, the term “backfield in motion” refers to a movement by the offense where a player in the backfield moves before the ball is snapped; it’s an illegal motion if the player moves forward, but okay if the motion is parallel to or away from the line of scrimmage. In the song, the phrase describes the lover’s seeming infidelity—somewhat descriptively, if you think about it. (Movin’ that backfield!)
Mel and Tim were cousins Mel Hardin and Tim McPherson. They started writing songs when they were teenagers growing up in Mississippi. Some of their songs got the attention of Gene Chandler, who signed them to his newly formed Bamboo label. They stayed together as a performing duo for a few years and had a few more minor hits, but “Backfield in Motion” was their big one.
Tim McPherson passed away in 1986, Mel Hardin moved to St. Louis, where he was a bus driver and disc jockey; he passed away in 1990.
