50 Ways to get on TWER: An interview with YouTube CAM-paign crooner Mark Stewart

Maybe it’s the beard or the beer or the uninhibited bellow of “Quarterback draw, y’aaaalllll” or the knee slaps on the last chorus but I can’t imagine another Newton-era video more deserving of going viral throughout the Auburn interwebs, as they say, (the song / video is awesome enough to make me use that term for the first time), than “The Ballad of Cam Newton.”

Surely it bests even Randy Campbell’s 1984 ode-to-Bo reworking of “Mr. Bo Jangles” on the short but proud list of musical tributes to Auburn players.

And it was Mark Stewart’s first ever upload to YouTube.

TWER connected with the 53-year-old bearded balladeer via the Android phone he used to record his baptism into Cam Consciousness to find out a little bit about him (currently works at Red Stone Arsenal in Huntsville, born at East Alabama Medical Center in Opelika where his father served as hospital administrator in the Year of Our Championship 1957, graduated – Rebels represent – from Vestavia Hills in Birmingham in 1975, attended Auburn from ’75-76) and just what it is about Cam Newton that led him to film himself covering Paul Simon’s “50 Ways to Leave Your Lover” as “50 Ways to Win the Heisman”.

TWER: So where did you get the idea for the song / video?

I was watching ESPN the other day and they were talking about Cam Newton and about how many ways he can beat you. And it just popped into my head. And Paul Simon, he wrote that song the years I was at Auburn. And it just popped into my head. I’ve always enjoyed that song. I’ve never made a video for YouTube in my life. I enjoy watching YouTube. But one thing led to another and I had some free time and I just sat down and wrote it out. I just had my cell phone [laughing] and just recorded it while I was practicing it and decided to upload it. I had fun with it.

TWER: Have you gotten a reaction?

Yeah, from family and friends and people I work with. Here’s what I’m thinking – he doesn’t have much of a campaign. He needs a campaign. I thought that’d be my contribution. All the Heisman guys over the years won because of big campaigns and he seems a real laid back guy and probably doesn’t enjoy all the mass attention.

TWER: So… Team of Destiny?

I hate to jinx it, but it’s lookin’ good. We gotta beat Alabama and Alabama is a great football team and I don’t know that they think that Auburn is going to beat them. All the Alabama fans I work with, they don’t think Auburn can beat them. But there’s something about this team. I really am a big Auburn fan. I don’t get to get to the games much anymore, but I’ve kept up with them all these years, and there seems to be a chemistry on this team like no other team I can even remember. I don’t know. Cam Newton just seems to be the glue that’s holding it together. It was a special athlete to come down there and I don’t think Gene Chizik has gotten his due. Pat Dye cam in and turned it around his second year. It’s like history is repeating itself in a way, I hope.

TWER: If it turns out as good as it can, but Newton decides to turn pro before his senior season, won’t it be weird to think back on this one, glorious “Season of Cam”?

Well, I’ve thought about that a lot. The way I see it is this: I see myself as kind of like those old Red Sox fans. There was a movie about Red Sox fans and I don’t know if you saw it but they interviewed all these old people, these Red Sox fans in the 80s, who’d never seen the Red Sox win a World Series and they were saying ‘just one, I’d like to see just one before I die. Please, just one.’ Well, my brother died a few years ago, he died before his time. He was just nine years older than me. And well, he didn’t get to see it. And I sorta feel that way. Just once… just once. Please win it this year. Just once. I don’t want a dynasty. I don’t want to be an arrogant Alabama fan counting championships and fudging them. Just one would be fine with me. And if he helps us win this one, just one, that’s fine with me. That’d be enough for me. Seriously. I want to see him stay, but he’s got to do what’s right for him.

TWER: Was there a particular moment or play that made you realize that he might be special?

Well, I guess he had a couple of really good runs early on. That one at Mississippi State I think where he got away. And of course that 49 yard run against LSU. That was incredible. I watched that play on DVR several times. He outran the fastest guy on the field and that Peterson guy, he carried him eight yards into the end zone. It reminded me of the time Bo Jackson bowled over Brian Bosworth.

TWER: Are you working on another song?

Yeah.

TWER: Is it another reworked cover? An original?

[Laughing] A cover — no, I’m not a songwriter. But yeah, one more and that’s going to be it. It’s going to be to “Solitary Man” by Neil Diamond but Heisman Winning Man. I think it’ll be better than the first one. I’ll probably have it up at the end of the week, hopefully before the next game. I sort of have a hard time believing that people like that video.

TWER: Man – it’s awesome. It’s a good idea. Especially with your explanation – exactly… 50 ways to win the Heisman… and you made that before the Ole Miss game, right?

Right, recorded it and put it up there right before it. There’s a reference to the upcoming Ole Miss game in there and I worked hard to get it up there before that game.

TWER: See… there you go… and he goes out and catches a touchdown pass for the first score… 51 ways.

Yeah, that worked out pretty well. One of the guys at work said he might be the first guy to ever throw a touchdown pass to himself. Throw it and run and catch it. If anybody can do it, it’s him.

Lyrics to “The Ballad of Cam Newton (With Apologies to Paul Simon)”:

Down on the Plains there in the season interlude,
There came this junior college football playing dude.
They called him Cam and it was shortly understood that there would be
50 ways to win the Heisman.
When the season started there were candidates many
All of them were vying for that elusive trophy.
Now there’s only one left standing there for all to see.

There must be 50 ways to win the Heisman… 50 ways to win the Heisman.

Just to pitch to the back, Jack
Throw to the end, Glenn
Run down the field, Bill, and score a TD.
Quick snap the ball, Paul
Quarterback draw, y’all.
Another first down, clown, and that is the key.

(x2)

When they saw the numbers they all thought it was a fluke, but now the Gator fans are trying hard not just to puke.
How in the world could they have left that prospect off the hook. There must be 50 ways to win the Heisman.
Now that LSU and Arkansas are down, the Rebels on the road then the Bulldogs come to town…
With the Alabama rivalry of renown, that leaves 50 ways to win the Heisman… 50 ways to win the Heisman.

Just to pitch to the back, Jack
Throw to the end, Glenn
Run down the field, Bill, and score a TD.
Quick snap the ball, Paul.
Quarterback draw, y’all.
Another first down, clown, and that is the key.

(x2 –w/ knee slaps).

Thanks to reader Ronnie Hardy, you can now download the song as an MP3.

And now, thanks to reader Todd Smith, you can now download the official Quarterback Draw, Y’aaaallll ringtone.