Categories: News

Will the Phillies embrace ‘Dancing On My Own’ again?

Garrett Stubbs is the Phillies’ DJ. (Grace Del Pizzo/Phillies Nation)

NEW YORK — The next Phillies win will be followed by a champagne celebration.

It could happen as early as Sunday night with a Phillies win over the Mets. Another loss will delay the celebration by at least one day. The magic number to clinch the NL East is one.

A staple of the Phillies’ locker room celebrations is the music. The “Phils Win” playlist curated by Garrett Stubbs and Kyle Schwarber was discovered on Spotify after the Phillies’ wild card victory over the St. Louis Cardinals in 2022. One song played in the locker room went viral and became the song that defined the last two Phillies postseason runs.

A cover of Robyn’s “Dancing On My Own” by Calum Scott and Tiësto captivated the Phillies fanbase in 2022. The team began playing the song immediately after postseason wins. Players sung along as they sprayed champagne and beer all over each other at the end of every playoff clincher and postseason series win. It became a symbol of the Phillies’ fun-loving, nothing to lose vibes that helped carry them all the way to an unlikely World Series appearance.

But the Phillies got away from both the song and the playlist at the beginning of 2023. Kyle Schwarber reportedly called it a “second-place song” in spring training. Then the Phillies entered the month of June five games under .500 and decided it was time to bring back the song and all the good vibes that came with it. As the Phillies posed for a team photo on the field after the team clinched a postseason berth at Citizens Bank Park in 2023, “Dancing On My Own” began playing to the pleasant surprise of both the fans and players. It was a thing for another year.

The public opinion shifted dramatically when the Phillies lost Games 6 and 7 at home to the Arizona Diamondbacks in the 2023 NLCS. Fans who already hated the song hated it even more. Those who were lukewarm turned on it out of disgust for how the season ended. Many fans still like the song. The Savannah Bananas sang it in front of a sold out Citizens Bank Park on Saturday night.

But are the 2024 Phillies back on board with “Dancing On My Own” being the song? It’s complicated.

Stubbs, the team’s DJ, said the song makes an appearance on the team’s new postgame remix playlist that has yet to be publicly released. Judging by the sounds coming from the Phillies clubhouse after wins, the new playlist, which the team began using earlier in the year, also includes familiar songs from the Phils Win playlist, from “Love Tonight” by Shouse to “Dicked Down in Dallas” by Trey Lewis.

Do the Phillies want to distance themselves from the song that has been the soundtrack to their success — and arguably failures — over the last two years?

“It seems like most people do,” Stubbs said, referring to those on the outside.

Stubbs added that it’s been played a couple times in the clubhouse this year on special occasions. The opinions on the song are mixed among players, but the decision to pivot to something a little different is rooted in where the fanbase is at.

“I don’t think anybody [in the clubhouse] has any hard negative feelings about the song the way that some fans do.” Stubbs said.

Maybe it catches on again. Maybe it doesn’t. Either way, the Phillies are ready to embrace whatever captures the hearts of players and fans alike.

“We’re all good from moving on from it if that’s what people are into,” Stubbs said. “At the end of the day, we’re gonna do whatever feels good because that’s how it got out there in the first place. It was just we genuinely enjoyed it and had fun with it.”