ZZ Top – "Sleeping Bag" (1985)

Zip it on around while it’s on the ground

Spread it out and lay it on down

Slip inside my sleeping bag

Back in the day, Olympic figure skaters usually played it safe when it came to the music that accompanied their performances – which is why you heard a lot of classical music (The Rite of Spring, Swan Lake, and Bolero) and movie themes (“A Time for Us” from Romeo and Juliet) during figure-skating competitions.

Tonya Harding in 1991

Tonya Harding was certainly the most unconventional ice skater of her era, and the music she skated to often reflected that.  For example, at the 1992 U.S. Figure Skating Championships, she performed to today’s featured song, ZZ Top’s “Sleeping Bag.” 

That moment is captured in the 2017 movie, I, Tonya:  

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The betting is that Alison Janney, who plays Harding’s bossy, foul-mouthed, chain-smoking mother, will take home the Best Supporting Actress award tonight when the Oscars are handed out in Hollywood tonight.

The fabulous Australian babe Margot Robbie, who portrayed Harding, is something of a long shot to win the Best Actress Oscar, but I’m rooting for her.

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I, Tonya reminds me of a Martin Scorsese movie – think Goodfellas or The Wolf of Wall Street (which also starred Robbie) – because it often breaks the fourth wall, but mostly because it has a fabulous soundtrack consisting mostly of FM-radio staples from the seventies and eighties.

Tonya Harding today

I’m talking songs like Fleetwood Mac’s “The Chain,” Foreigner’s “Feels Like the First Time,” Heart’s “Barracuda,” Bad Company’s “Shooting Star,” and Laura Branigan’s “Gloria.”

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ZZ Top’s “Sleeping Bag” made it all the way to #1 on the Billboard “Mainstream Rock” music chart in 1985.

Tonya Harding was almost 15 when it was released, which probably explains a lot.

Here’s “Sleeping Bag”:



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