Sunday, February 7 was a pretty rough day to be a K.C. Chiefs fan. Coming off the back of their best regular season ever, it is hard to imagine how Super Bowl LV could have been much worse for the Chiefs.
Since that day, I have done my best to avoid thinking about that game—the penalties, the dropped catches, the timeouts at the end of the half and of course, the result. For the most part I’ve been able to, but one thing keeps bringing all the memories back. To try and elude the unwanted flashbacks I have avoided watching or reading anything about the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, and rather than looking back at last season and the Super Bowl and what could have been, I’ve been looking forward to the season to come.
But despite all my efforts to push any memories of Super Bowl LV into the most far away corner of my mind, there is one thing that keeps on bringing them all rushing back: hearing the song “Blinding Lights” by The Weeknd. Every time I hear that song now, no matter what I’m doing, it serves as a painful reminder of what happened in the Super Bowl.
Painful Super Bowl LV memories have ruined The Weeknd’s “Blinding Lights” for KC Chiefs fans.
The Weeknd, of course, performed during the halftime show, and now whenever I hear his song “Blinding Lights,” all those painful memories of the game resurface. This has happened more than once.
The first time was the week after the game when the song came on the radio as I was driving somewhere. Since then, I’ve heard the song while I’ve been at the supermarket, in the middle of a physiotherapy appointment, at a party, at a bar and on the radio again a handful more times as well.
The song pops up in TV advertisements, too, and seems to be the backing track for a million videos on TikTok and other social media platforms. And of course, every time I hear it, I can’t help but wonder how on earth the Chiefs lined up offside on a field goal attempt or how Tyrann Mathieu could get flagged for pass interference on an uncatchable ball.
A particularly annoying thing about this grim memory association is that it is unavoidable. I can’t control what music comes on the radio or what is played in public. I can just be casually going about my day, and it will randomly come on. Instantly I’m taken back to memories of Patrick Mahomes under pressure.
What makes it even more frustrating is that, prior to the game, I actually really liked the song. It’s catchy, and I had it in my Spotify ‘liked’ playlist. It has since been removed.
And so, because of the unfortunate events of Super Bowl LV, a great song has now been totally ruined. I blame Tom Brady.