Why Everyone Says "Let's Gooooooo!": The Lost History of a Phrase, from Shakespeare to Taylor Swift

Summary

Episode Overview

Podcast: Pablo Torre Finds Out
Episode: Why Everyone Says "Let's Gooooooo!": The Lost History of a Phrase, from Shakespeare to Taylor Swift
Air Date: January 23, 2024
Host: Pablo Torre (with guest correspondent Jeremy Tache)
Theme:
This episode dives deep into the cultural, historical, and viral journey of the phrase "Let's go!"—from its origins in literature, music, sports, and pop culture to its current omnipresence as the celebratory exclamation of choice. Using humor and journalistic rigor, Pablo and Jeremy try to answer: Who really deserves credit for making "Let's go" the modern rallying cry, and what does its evolution tell us about language, sports culture, and internet memes?

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Setting the Stage: "Let's Go" Takes Over Everything

• The Catalysts: The NFL postseason, Taylor Swift at Chiefs games, and the noticed ubiquity of "Let's go!" across sports and pop culture.
• The Dilemma: As the phrase explodes in usage, Pablo and his team puzzle over its origins and why it's resonated so hard, especially recently.
• Notable banter about Pablo's "overworn" blue cardigan (03:00), segues to the threadbare "Taylor Swift" discourse in the media.
• Pablo wonders: “Why is everyone saying this same phrase as if this is a meme that they're all forced to retweet?” (05:06)

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2. The Ubiquity of "Let's Go"

• Seen everywhere: NFL, NBA, F1, social media, classrooms, esports (09:00).
• Listener voicemail asks exactly when and how the phrase took over as a sports exclamation (05:00).
• Notable quote about its multifaceted meaning:

  "It's a call to action as well as a celebration of the action you already had successfully completed." (09:36, Pablo)

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3. Chasing "Patient Zero": Is Tom Brady Responsible?

• Tom Brady seen as the modern face—“Mr. Let's Go”—for the phrase, especially his enthusiastic, multi-O version ("Let's gooooooo!") since at least 2015 (11:40).
• Pablo on the Brady effect:

  "Every bro in a quarter zip sort of fleece. They're cosplaying as Tom Brady." (12:01)

• But "let's go" predates Brady by a long shot.

Brady’s Own Explanation

• Brady used “Let's go” as an emotional trigger on game day:

  “For me, anger was good. Anger was good because it was motivating...when I ran out on the field and I said, let's go, it was really, let's go kick some ass.” (12:44–13:25, Tom Brady)

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4. The Search Expands: From Taylor Swift to Shakespeare

• Taylor Swift’s involvement mostly limited to being seen mouthing “Let’s f***ing go!” at games, but does NOT own the phrase.
• The team considers what would count as true ownership:
  • It must be organic and guttural—not performative or designed (14:44).
  • Needs that long, launched “goooooo” (15:51).

The Historical Trail

• Wikipedia and popular memory cite various sports teams and chants (e.g., “Let’s Go White Sox!”), but these don’t explain the recent explosion.
• Shakespeare’s Comedy of Errors ("Now, let's go hand in hand, not one before another") is the earliest known source (17:10).
• 1942: US Navy World War II posters—“Fight! Let's Go! Join the Navy!”—give the phrase a militaristic, communal edge (18:04).
• 1962: “Let’s Go (Pony)” by The Routers; origins of the stadium chant + clapping (18:48).
• The Ramones (1976), The Cars (1979), and “Let’s Go Mets!” (1986) contribute to the phrase’s spread in sports and music (19:33, 20:24).

The Jingle Era

• The same jingle writer who did “Meow Mix” created the “Let’s Go Mets” anthem (21:10).
• On why it works:

  “What can people get their head around with six beers in them?” (21:50, Jingle writer)

Spanish Language Connection

• “Vamos” as the Spanish equivalent, carrying its own charged history.

  “There’s an edge to ‘vamos.’ There’s that Brady, the Tom Brady animosity to vamos.” (23:40, Pablo)

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5. “Let’s Go” as Meme: From Arena to Internet

• Musical and commercial origins blend with modern meme culture.
• Lil Jon’s “Let’s Go!” (2000s) cements it in hip hop and the club/sports lexicon, but he declines to claim credit (24:42).

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6. The Modern Crown: The “Let’s Goat”

• Enter Coach Matthew Driscoll, University of North Florida men’s basketball coach, whose viral “Let’s go!” in 2017 is the platonic ideal of the phrase (26:21–27:32).
  • Visual: Short, energetic coach, white shirt and tie, turns to camera and unleashes the ultimate “Let’s go!”
• Driscoll describes his method:

  “The breath is huge. Whether or not you have a vitamin C drop in your mouth is critical. The way...you take that breath before the depth of the ‘let’s go’...you want it to be able to breathe back out.” (29:45, Driscoll)

• Driscoll is so passionate, he judges other uses of the phrase (29:07) and is even recognized in public more for his voice than his face (30:36).
• “Let’s Go Offs” and “Let’s Go” competitions are now part of UNF’s team culture and marketing (31:20).

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7. Who Truly Owns “Let’s Go”?

• By Pablo and Jeremy’s standards, Driscoll is the most authentic embodiment of the phrase:

  1. Organic, sincere, from-the-gut usage.
  2. A “let’s go” with more “O’s” than anyone else.

• Driscoll is crowned “the let’s Goat” (the Greatest Of All Time at “let’s go”).

  “Maybe I could be the goat of the let’s go.” (34:05, Driscoll)
  “I think we’re hammering the over on this one.” (33:18, Pablo, counting the O’s)

• Driscoll proposes a “Let’s Go-Off” with Tom Brady (34:49)

  “Let’s let the nation decide who is the goat of the let’s go.” (36:03, Driscoll)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “It's shalom, essentially.” (09:54, Jeremy describing the all-purpose utility of “let’s go”)
• “What can people get their head around with six beers in them?” (21:50, jingle writer, on the simplicity of “let’s go”)
• “I am reeling at the arc you’re tracing here. Right? So we go from William Shakespeare to Meow Mix guy.” (23:18, Pablo)
• “He’s the greatest, and he is the king of the ‘let’s go.’ And I think he knows it, right? He loves when other people do it too.” (28:45, Jeremy on Driscoll)
• “If you say any phrase often enough, it can no longer be considered ironic. In fact, if you say any phrase often enough, it just becomes who you are. Lol.” (39:11, Pablo in closing)

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Key Timestamps

| Timestamp | Segment/Quote | |-----------|----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| | 03:30 | Taylor Swift seen saying “let’s go” at Chiefs game—sets off the investigation | | 05:00 | Listener voicemail asks about "let’s go" as a sports reaction | | 11:41 | Tom Brady and the multi-O “let’s go!” | | 12:44 | Brady on using “let’s go” for game-day emotion | | 17:10 | Shakespeare’s Comedy of Errors as earliest known usage | | 18:48 | “Let’s Go (Pony)” by The Routers—song as stadium chant origin | | 19:33 | The Ramones, The Cars, and the 1986 “Let’s Go Mets” hype video | | 23:40 | "Vamos" and the Spanish influence discussion | | 24:42 | Lil Jon’s “Let’s Go!” and his humility | | 26:21 | Introduction of Coach Matthew Driscoll (whose “let’s go” went viral) | | 29:45 | Driscoll explains his technique for “let’s go” | | 31:20 | UNF “let’s go” competition and the meme as university marketing | | 34:05 | Driscoll crowned “let’s Goat” | | 36:03 | Driscoll proposes a “let’s go” contest against Tom Brady | | 39:11 | Pablo’s sign-off on how repeated phrases lose their irony (the “lol” parallel) |

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Episode Takeaways

• "Let's go" is a phrase with deep roots, stretching from Shakespeare to meme culture, with music, sports, and advertising all shaping its meaning.
• Its enduring appeal comes from its simplicity, communal spirit, and ability to amplify emotion—making it the ideal modern celebratory soundbite.
• The “ownership” of “let’s go” is less about who said it first and more about who says it best—and most authentically.
• UNF Coach Matthew Driscoll is, by the hosts' playful and thorough analysis, the truest “let’s Goat.”
• Closing reflection: Even the most overused phrases start to become sincere just from repetition. Language, ultimately, gets its power from those who shout it—and mean it.

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For sports and culture nerds, meme scholars, or anyone who has ever bellowed “let’s go!” after an accomplishment, this “talkumentary” is a witty, deeply reported, and surprisingly philosophical journey into a phrase that unites locker rooms, arenas, and, apparently, the history of the English language.

Transcript

[A]

Welcome to Pablo Torre finds out. I am Pablo Torre. And today we're gonna find out what this sound is.

[B]

Tom Brady, you and I split screen. And let's let the nation decide who is the goat of the.

[A]

Let's go right after this ad. You're listening to Giraffe Kings Network.

[C]

Foreign.

[A]

So as we look ahead to conference championship weekend. And by the way, it's electric, honestly. In the afc, you have the Chiefs and the Ravens. In the nfc, you have the Lions and the Niners. I cannot help but think about one phrase that continues to decorate every step of this postseason and will undoubtedly define the super bowl itself. It is a phrase that every team says, every team is declaring this online, in real life, whether they ever think about it or realize it or not. And let's be honest, most of us don't take a second to wonder why we're all saying it. But it is the specific reason that I wanted to bring you this episode, this investigation. Today we hear inside the PTFO newsroom have been grappling with a particular dilemma. So there's a team of journalists out there and I see them, they are working on something, all of them together. And what it is, is they are working on why you've worn the same blue jacket every single time we've taped. It is a cardigan. It is not a jacket. It's been over worn. It has high thread count. You have not taken it home to wash it once. It is naturally resistant because of those fibers. Do you have any other cardigan or sweater type of outfit? I have many cardigans. I have a lot of knitwear. That is not the dilemma. It's not apparent. No. If you watch this show, the dilemma we're here to discuss and how dare you? How dare you? It's a nice cardigan. I'm sorry, but you do wear it a lot. That's all I'm saying. The dilemma is far more pressing. This sweater does not smell. The dilemma is how we're supposed to cover Taylor Swift, right? The threadbare sweater of American media these days is talking about Taylor Swift because we should just say it for people who have been, I guess, in a coma for weeks now. Taylor Swift is dating Travis Kelce and it is the most over covered, oversaturated. It's the most overdone story in all of American culture. Bro, I apologize. I was not listening to anything you just said because it just hit me. Like you and the cardigan, it's not unlike a doctor putting on a lab coat or whatever it is they wear. And they're like, oh, now I'm a doctor. And they go in or whatever. You put that on when you walk in here. Like, I am now a journalist. I'm just trying to make my parents proud of me. They're not. But I was contemplating. I was contemplating truly, like, how are we going to do this differently? How are we going to stitch together our own beautiful high thread count quilt that addresses the Taylor Swift story? And so I did notice one thing. 11th play of the drive, Mahomes lost the end zone.

[B]

There it is.

[A]

A touchdown of Kelsey. This may be the first time in history that Patrick Mahomes isn't the most popular player in Arrowhead, but Taylor Swift in the house. Travis Kelce says, oh, baby. Now, if you are not watching on the DraftKings network or on YouTube, what you cannot see there is Travis Kelce. Yes, Kansas City Chiefs tight end scoring a touchdown. What you cannot hear there anywhere is what Taylor Swift is very obviously saying on live television in front of all of America behind the glass of a luxury box right next to Donna Kelce, which is let's go. And this mostly just went, like, unremarked upon, except by certain people.

[C]

Here you have Taylor Swift probably just.

[A]

Met Travis Kelce's mom for the first time. They're at the game last week and.

[C]

She'S going, let's effing go right in front of her. But Travis, Kelsey said that everybody in the booth that she was sitting in.

[A]

His family, everybody said that she was so lovely.

[C]

Lovely until.

[A]

I'm sorry if I heard that. And my son was dating a girl, has a mouth like a teamster. That's it. Like a teamster, bro. What's wrong with this Fox News guy? Like, let's go. Is everywhere. I've. I've seen it in sports for years. I see it everywhere. I say it myself. Yes, that. And, and that part, what you're saying here, profanity aside, that's the thing that hit me about this, because you're completely right. Everybody everywhere, all of the time, all at once seems to be saying, let's go. Quarterbacks say it, college kids say it. I've seen Formula one drivers say it, NBA players say it, teachers say it, gamers say it all the time. What I wanted to find out is something that I have long been curious about myself. Why? Why is everyone saying this same phrase as if this is a meme that they're all forced to retweet? And it turns out you're not the only one with that question. Because when we put out the call for voicemails to our great listeners, it turns out one of them had a very similar question to that. Hey, Pablo, it's David from dc. I was hoping to get the definitive story about how the phrase let's go became the de facto response to a big play in a sports game. Everywhere I look on tv, in local sports, that's all that's being said when something happens. It has just become the go to phrase for all athletes when they do something big. How did that happen? Where did it come from? Thanks, bye. I genuinely love our listeners. I do, too. Call 51385, Pablo. If you have more questions, please come. Amazing. The assignment inbox is open. That's what I'm calling it. But all of this really did feel like the universe itself was calling us to investigate this question, right? The question of who deserves the most credit for this phrase. And the good news is that I knew exactly which PTFO correspondent that I needed to go on this assignment. I'm thinking of the same guy.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

Chair Bear. Oh, God. Fart Bear. Jeremy. Taje. We meet again. How old are you?

[C]

I'm 28, Pablo.

[A]

Just. Even the voice is already giving me PTSD. So. You're 28 years old. You're very young. You forced me to reckon with my mortality, and you're bringing me back into the time machine because the last time I saw you, Jeremy, or at least the time that I cannot forget, it was April. The Miami Heat were playing the Milwaukee Bucks in the NBA playoffs, and I was hosting, sitting in Dan's chair, trying to direct a conversation among you Miami Heat propagandists. And in that conversation, suddenly I heard you say this, let's go.

[C]

In that scenario, I was just trying to add a rightful punctuation to one of our beloved Heat propagandists in Ryan Parakeet Cortez, someone who obviously is beloved here at Pablo Torre, finds out. And to me, I felt like he just needed some support.

[A]

To me, you felt like Wile E. Coyote over the canyon, realizing that, oh, yeah, this is gonna go south real quick.

[C]

Let's go and we can play it.

[A]

One more time, actually, just for, you know, just thoroughness.

[C]

Let's go. The reason that I was saying it to begin with is because I was sort of following what athletes have been saying in moments like that.

[A]

Forgive me, what athlete were you channeling there specifically?

[C]

I think it would be unfair to name any specific athletes in this scenario. I don't want to throw them under the bus.

[A]

Well, there are lots of suspects. So that's the thing about this story, is that you start to just peel the first layer back and you're like, this is omnipresent.

[C]

Well, there are a ton of options, right? Like, you have Nick Foles in the 2018 Super bowl for the Philadelphia Eagles.

[A]

Let's go. Let's go.

[C]

You have LeBron James, who will say it before games.

[A]

Yes. I've heard Formula one drivers say it after their races. Let's go.

[C]

Let's go.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

Which means that both pre game and post game athletes are using this. Right. It kind of means everything is kind of like at this point, it's a word that gets deployed to mean all sorts of things. Like, it's a call to action as well as a celebration of the action you already had successfully completed.

[C]

Yeah, it's shalom, essentially. No, it's one of those words where, I don't know, I guess the part with let's go that's confusing to me is that I don't really remember it existing growing up. And, you know, you pointed out I'm super freaking young. So it's not like there's been that much time for all of these phrases to evolve.

[A]

And for us elder millennials, Jeremy, we are similarly confused. All we sort of know now is that the word cloud of American Life, right, in 3000 point font is let's go. And it's there now. It's hanging over us. And so this is why I came to you with an assignment, an actual journalistic task for a guy who is allegedly a reporter.

[B]

You're counting us right now as the Miami Heat have just won game two of the NBA Finals.

[C]

You can see that this crowd here is hoisting babies into the air.

[A]

How did we get here? Like, how does human speech in this way go viral? Who was the patient zero of this movement?

[C]

That's a great question. And yes, I did spend weeks reporting this. I mean, we spoke to other journalists, we spoke to people within sports, people within entertainment. I mean, really, it kind of went across the board. And this goes beyond the standard jumbotron calls of like, let's go Yankees or let's go Mets. And I think that's the part that's kind of crazy. We were just talking about it, Right. I don't remember it growing up. And I think that's my first takeaway from going down this rabbit hole on this assignment.

[A]

Wait, wait, wait, wait. So you went down the rabbit hole and you didn't find anybody there?

[C]

I mean, if you're polling America, the obvious and easy patient zero would be Tom Brady.

[B]

Are you ready?

[A]

Let's go. Let's go, baby. Let's go.

[C]

Let's go.

[A]

When you see that, you're like, oh, right, of course, of course. Every bro in a quarter zip sort of fleece. They're cosplaying as Tom Brady.

[C]

Yes, well, and that's the part, right? Tom Brady's supposed to be Mr. Let's go. You know, he's been using this sort of elongated version of let's Go, the one that we're talking about, the scream, the guttural version of it, since at least 2015 at the Patriots victory parade. Let's go.

[A]

I saw a viral clip from, like, a conference, I think this was. This was last month, a viral clip from a conference where Brady sort of took us inside the actor's studio on this.

[C]

You've got to create a lot of different emotion to heighten your sense of awareness and focus. Like, for me, anger was good. Anger was good because it was motivating. The more I could create an enemy, the more I wanted to go out and kill those guys. Now, I knew I wasn't gonna kill him physically, but, man, if I could just. What did they say, you know? And what did they look like? Do they disrespect me at all?

[A]

You know?

[C]

And did that say something like, those.

[B]

Are little, little, little things that can.

[C]

Get me right in the emotional frame of mind that when I ran out.

[A]

On the field and I said, let's.

[C]

Go, it was really, let's go kick some ass. That's what we were doing.

[A]

That is the sound of people applauding a sociopath. I mean, that's what that sounds like.

[C]

He literally was like, let me figure out what it's like to channel a serial killer. I'm not going to do it, but I want to get it.

[A]

That's right. So who inspired Tom Brady to say this then? Like, in your investigation, is everyone just, like, ceding intellectual property rights to that dude?

[C]

No, absolutely not. Like, that's not going to happen. And we'll get to the guy that, you know, really thinks he may very well be behind it. But I can tell you that it's not Taylor Swift. As someone who is a resident swifty around these parts at Metal Arc Media, she does. Hey, she does have a song, an unreleased song, mind you, called let's Go.

[A]

I need to stop you there. Not just because I am worried that I don't know enough Taylor Swift stuff to actually be a working member of the sports media today. But. But Also because I do want to turn our little sports journalism enterprise here into something of a trademark office. Because the question we're circling is like, who owns this phrase? Right? Like, what's the standard here that we're using to determine who Mr. Let's Go or Mrs. Let's Go would be.

[C]

So to me, standard number one was pretty simple. Let's go had to be organic. It couldn't feel forced, it couldn't feel performative. It's gotta come from that deep place inside of you, that guttural place that this is not something that I have planned. So, like listening back to some of your previous episodes of Pablo Torre finds out Russell Wilson started all of a sudden making his catchphrase let's go because he heard that Taylor Swift has been saying it. Well, you know that that wouldn't necessarily apply.

[A]

Right, right, right. So Russ saying, by the way, Russ saying a lot. Go Hawks in Seattle. That doesn't apply either. Because again, the letter of the law there not exactly the same thing as let's go.

[C]

Right. Because for standard number two, the letter of the law wasn't enough. Right. We want to talk about the sort of spirit of the rule as we continuously discuss how this is sort of an emotional thing. I think the spirit of the law matters here. And so the phrase let's go, it's really been around forever, but it's usage, it's spirit that's distinct. You need like, I don't know, at least seven O's in it.

[A]

Right, right, right, right, right. So again, not like this let's go O's even more chutzpah, I believe. So what's the lineage here? Like where does this origin story actually begin?

[C]

Even the great all knowing Wikipedia struggled to get all of the details right here. For example, Wikipedia claimed that there was a resurgence of a 70 year old chant to a let's go, go, go White Sox that led to the 2005 White Sox playoff run. My song we're with you all away.

[A]

You'Re always in there fighting. But, but, but 2005 absolutely would predate all of the Internet stuff we're describing right now.

[C]

Yeah, and that's part of why this story is wrong. Because we reached out to catcher A.J. prasinski, who was on that team, a classic, a classic name in Major League Baseball. And he told us via DM that that song in 2005 was not really as much of a part of the White Sox World Series run as Don't Stop Believin by Journey Don't Stop Believing. When you talk about the real origin story of this phrase, it goes all the way back to the late 1500s. It turns out that Shakespeare had a line in A Comedy of Errors. Now, let's go hand in hand. Not one before another. Let's go hand in hand.

[A]

Let's go. Yeah, listen to that. Now, it does occur to me that you are a little more Shakespeare than Tom Brady, Jeremy.

[C]

Yeah, more Shakespeare than Tom Brady, I think, is how anyone who knew me in high school also probably would have described me. But a writer for Slate who we spoke to, Luke Winke, he's also obsessed with this. He traced that. That Shakespeare line drew straight from there all the way to 1942. And that's when there was a recruitment poster for the US Navy that read, fight, let's go Join the Navy.

[A]

Yeah. Now we're getting, I think, significantly more macho in the evolution of the phrase.

[C]

Yeah, well, the writer said the same thing, and he said that the militarization of this rally cry kind of gave it this communal masculinity, in a sense.

[A]

And so this phrase, just to recap, here goes from Shakespeare to the U.S. navy, out to, like, locker rooms to stadiums, to the sidelines to where jukeboxes.

[C]

Across America in the 1960s. Pablo, do you remember this clap?

[A]

Of course. Of course.

[C]

I found out where it comes from. It's 1962's let's Go parentheses Pony by the Routers. And I was legitimately, really excited to find this song because I think as so many sounds that initially come from songs no different than Seven Nation army, which has become an arena staple, I don't think I realized that that clap and let's Go came from musicians, came from a song. This is something I always just assumed was concocted for stadiums. And so the idea that this came from one place was really exciting.

[A]

Right. Well, now that I'm thinking about, like, the musical catalog here, there's that, and then there's the Ramones.

[C]

Right. And that was in 1976. And then the Cars had a song called let's go in 1979. And then in 1986, the New York Mets had a song do it. Now, this is the video for let's Go, Mets. This is essentially a hype video for the New York Mets in the middle of their season in 1986, a season that was going incredibly well, obviously led to them winning the World Series. And halfway through, they had this unbelievable idea to create a music video around a song called let's Go Mets that had everyone chanting let's go, Mets.

[A]

So this thing, as someone who grew up, was born in the city, in New York City in 1985, this thing, when I watch it now for the podcast audience, what you're missing on our YouTube channel is essentially like a giant singing pile of cocaine.

[C]

Even watching it, you know, behind the scenes video on the VHS that we were able to find here, which that was a journey in itself. The energy behind it is crazy because you have, you know, players juggling baseballs for the camera, blowing bubbles, and there's all sorts of extra shots that they had to get. Let's go, let's go.

[A]

Who the are the people behind this?

[C]

So we spoke to the ad man who commissioned the video, as well as the jingle writer who made the song, and he also directed the video. And what they told us was a ton of different information about what was going on behind the scenes here. First and foremost, the ad agency that was working with the Mets. Initially, they reached out to Billy Joel, to Elton John, to Stevie Wonder, and ultimately they settled for someone who they had already worked with on previous jingles. So the ad man gives one direction to the jingle man. It better be great.

[A]

That's just good coaching.

[C]

It is good coaching. It is good coaching. And the jingle guy told us that. And this is a direct quote. What can people get their head around with six beers in them? And so that's sort of where this simple. Let's go, let's go, let's go. Starts up. You know, he had on.

[A]

What were they on, Jeremy? What were the players in the video on?

[C]

He had no comment about whether or not the Mets, who were notorious party animals, were particularly on anything during the video shoot. But he said that the energy was up. It did sound like a lot of fun on set. I mean, there were notes of Ron Darling playing air guitar on a baseball bat. Keith Hernandez sat the director down and told them that initially the players were really excited about the song and making the video because they all thought they were going to be rock stars and make a million doll dollars a piece for some reason, which they did not. And what the director told me specifically is, quote, they all wanted to be rock stars. That was the level of childhood naivete. So this is what's going on as you have all of these players behind the scenes. It's amazing.

[A]

But this director, I imagine that this director must look upon this work as the greatest of his entire career, then.

[C]

Well, he also wrote the jingle for the Meow mix commercial.

[B]

Meow, meow, meow meow meow meow meow.

[A]

Meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow.

[C]

It could not have been a better thing for him to have done than to write the Meow Mix commercial like it's perfect.

[A]

I am reeling now at the arc that you're tracing here. Right? So we go from William Shakespeare to Meow Mix guy. And now as I assess the English language, Jeremy, and you are a crypto Cuban. You're quietly a Cuban American.

[C]

Crypto Cupid is great. Crypto. That's a new phrase I'm going to use all the time.

[A]

I'm thinking of the Spanish language for that reason. Right. And as a person who knows Spanish and marvels at how to do it better, I want to point out that, like, vamos. Vamos is a thing in Spanish. Vamos literally means let's go. And that's been a thing forever. And vamos. When I think about what that word means versus what Meow Mix guy had the Mets doing, right? Like, there is an edge to. There's an edge to vamos. There's that Brady, the Tom Brady animosity to vamos. And so which of the, which of the English speaking artists that you surveyed here, who came closest to sort of replicating that specific quality?

[C]

Well, for that, I believe there's only one answer.

[A]

The modern bard himself. Yes. How could I have forgotten?

[C]

I mean, come on, it's gonna play in every single arena. You're gonna hear it constantly. We did reach out to Lil Jon multiple times. But a humble guy himself, he refuses to come on here and take credit for the origins of.

[A]

Let's. After the break, we figure out who deserves the throne that Lil Jon somehow abdicated. So I want to be intellectually honest here with you, Jeremy, because I think we're, we're. We're dealing with something that is legitimately tricky because what we're trying to do is solve the mystery of influence, right? And influence is not the same thing as being first. William Shakespeare cannot just in the comment section of human history, say first. And so the question really is about who is the most influential and maybe even who is best. It reminds me of, like, the problem that advertisers and marketers are facing even in the age of the Internet, because our brains are so noisy, our brains are so reluctant to assign credit for things. And so I feel like that's, That's a complication here that we gotta reckon with. Who deserves credit?

[C]

Look, Pablo, all of that is fair. All of your intellectualism is appreciated, but I Do think I found the guy who deserves the most credit. Oh, God.

[A]

I remember. Remember this man. I want to describe this man, Jeremy, for our podcast audience. What is happening in that video that you just resurrected for me?

[C]

Well, this video that you're watching is of Matthew Driscoll. And so Matthew Driscoll is the North Florida men's basketball coach. He's been there since 2009. But what's wonderful about the visual of this. Let's go. Is you have a head coach who is approximately 8 inches shorter than everybody else in the room.

[A]

Yes.

[C]

At least right off the bat. Wearing a white shirt and tie. Okay. A white shirt and tie. Tucked into his dress pants, facing away from everybody in the room.

[A]

It's kind of an amazing reveal. Like, you don't see him at first.

[C]

The team is walking away. And what's beautiful about it is you only see the team at first. You hear the let's go in the background, but you see the team, and. And then slowly, there's a bit of a pan, and then a quick, sharp zoom right into Matthew Driscoll, who's yelling at the top of his lungs, pablo. He is my Mr. Let's go. This was in the a Sun title game in 2017.

[A]

Of course. Of course. Who could forget the 2017 Atlantic sun title game? I believe the only Atlantic sun title game to ever go viral.

[C]

And I talked to Coach Driscoll this month.

[B]

Well, first of all, I want to say thank you for having me on. It seems like it was so long ago, when in reality, it was right around the corner.

[A]

What is this guy like, in. In, like, actual human conversation?

[C]

Well, he says he's been doing this basically forever. In sort of a more punchy way, though. More of a. Hey, let's go. Come on. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. That type of mentality, I'm a very.

[B]

Hey, let's go. Hey, let's go. Let's knock it out. Let's go. Let's knock it out. Let's knock it out. Let's knock it out.

[A]

Let's go.

[C]

Go.

[B]

Let's go.

[C]

But then one day in 2015, during a conference semifinal, he let out a sound that I imagine sounds somewhat like this. Let's go.

[A]

What I have found out already in this episode, Jeremy, is who your exact opposite is, because that is the diametric inverse of this.

[C]

Let's go. He is the greatest, and he is the king of the let's go. And I think he knows it, Right. He loves when other people do it. Too. And he'll be the first to judge, which I think is great. He's kept track of when LeBron said, let's go. Let's go. He's kept track of when Bronny James has said, let's go. He's kept the receipts. He judges Pablo.

[B]

He judges instead of America's Got Talent. I could be sitting up there. I don't know if you bent the knees enough. I'm not sure if your back. If your vocal cords were extended enough. I just really don't. I don't think you hit that note. Crescenda. It really didn't crescendo the way it should have.

[A]

The technique. The technique is what I am most impressed with now.

[C]

Yeah, I mean, he has a down dune art form. I mean, literally, if you look at the video, he. He's someone who. He stands away from his players. He says he always looks toward the wall as to not scream in anybody's face. He doesn't want to blow out their eardrums.

[B]

Sometimes it has to be a let's go. And then something doesn't go right. Right. And then you have to kind of regroup. Let's go. You know, and then. So now you get a different ending. The breath is huge. Whether or not you have a vitamin C drop in your mouth is critical. The way in which you take that breath before the depth of the let's go in your body movement, because you don't want the diaphragm too right. Compacted, because you want it to be able to breathe back out.

[A]

This man is a teacher.

[C]

He is a master. He is truly incredible at this.

[A]

Let's go. Does he get recognized because of this, like, out in real life?

[C]

Oh, yeah.

[B]

I was at Marshall's the other day with my wife returning something. The guy said, I know that. I know that voice. Anyway, I said, well, it's a good thing no one ever says, man, I. I recognize your. Your face. No, it's always like, I know that voice.

[A]

Does being recognizable in this way, does that help him in his actual job? Does it help him, you know, recruit young people to play for the University of North Florida?

[C]

Yeah. I mean, he said that in the middle of probably a half dozen different recruiting trips, there's been a wait. Hey, you're that guy from the meme, right? And he had a recruit that actually ended up, I believe, coming to the school who drew out a picture of him as the meme, who's a bit of an artist himself, drew the arched.

[A]

Back, the vocal cords, uncompacted the diaphragm extended.

[C]

Yes. The veins just popping out of the neck. He drew it all. It was amazing. And look, he says that the team has let's Go offs, that he'll continue doing the let's Go no matter the team's record, because he wants to be able to show that this is kind a fabric of the program. He's still doing it every game. And one part that I think is awesome is that the school even has a sort of let's Go competition during player warmups to hype up the crowd where fans come down from the stands with an opportunity to scream let's go. I mean, it's become marketing for the university at this point. He does keynote speeches, conferences. It's unbelievable. It really is.

[A]

I just want to say, for the record, I unironically want to hire this man to do the keynote speech. I want to start a conference just to have a keynote speech where he does this.

[C]

He wants to be a proper influencer. I'll tell you that. Based off the conversation he suggested to me, and I kind of think he was only half joking, he said that his athletic department should get 3/10 of a penny for every new view of the video. He's up to 385,000 and counting on YouTube alone. That's not including any of the times I sent it in my group chat.

[A]

I am now trying to piece this all together because you gave us two standards in the last segment for deciding who Mr. Let's Go ought to be. And number one, I believe was that it needs to be organic. It needs to be coming from deep inside you. And this man feels like the Marianas Trench when it comes to where this is coming from.

[C]

So obviously, check on standard number one.

[A]

Absolutely. So number two, I think we. We. How many O's did you say we needed?

[C]

I think it was seven.

[A]

Right. Okay, so let's try and count this. Every time we play it, it feels like there are more O's attached. But yes, I think we're. We're hammering the over on this one.

[C]

Yeah, I think if we counted, we'd probably get closer to 700 than to 7. He smashes the over here. I think we're in good shape.

[A]

So did you tell him, Jeremy? Did you tell him on behalf of Pablo Torre finds out that. That we were deciding his place in linguistic history, that a coronation was. Was on the line in your interview?

[C]

Yes, I did. I did tell him. I told him that he topped both Lil John and Tom Brady and. And in turn, he Actually coined his own new phrase.

[B]

Well, first of all, that's a kind honor, and I want to say thank you. And second of all, I think when something's genuine, I think it certainly separates itself and it allows it to be whatever it becomes. And so I'm not a Shakespeare. I'm not a Longfellow. I'm not any of those people. But I would say that I'm very honored that you would phrase it that way because it, you know, that's pretty good rapper and that's obviously the goat, so that's pretty. Hey, maybe I could be the goat of the let's go.

[A]

Wait, is he, is he saying that he is the let's Goat?

[C]

I think he is. Look, Coach Driscoll is, is still pretty decidedly pro Lil Jon in this narrative, but he legitimately thinks that he can take Tumbri.

[B]

It wouldn't even be a competition. And really, I'm serious, it wouldn't be. I mean, if you want to do this or do this real quick and get him on someday and get me on and then have a national vote to see he bring Gronkowski with him. He can bring whoever he wants to bring with him and let the best person win. Now, he can't use the explicit because, you know, a lot more people are. That secular population will be voting for him. So Tom Brady, listen, Coach Matthews, Risco University in North Florida. Apparently you and I both have a let's go. That's been very, very popular over the years. We know you're the goat in football, but let's see you and I split screen and let's let the nation decide who is the goat of the let's go.

[A]

I, I, this is, this is me actually having to take my headphones off like that. That, that actually did bust my eardrums. That is not a joke.

[C]

He is full of energy, you could.

[A]

Say full of explicitness as well, which I love. He said he's not Shakespeare. I disagree. I fully disagree.

[C]

He's creating words.

[A]

He's creating words. But hold on. I do need to admit something here, Jeremy, because the reason I went into this episode was because I had a very strong feeling that Let Go was dead and that you specifically you were the murderer, that you had killed it in April. And then when I saw Taylor Swift appear on national television in the most now famous game of the NFL season, I thought I was just watching her, you know, like just run a steamroller overall, what was already a corpse. And now after having, you know, my, my cerebellum burst by Matthew Driscoll. I kind of got to admit that I, I, I want to see the let's Goat prove that he is, in fact, the greatest of all time.

[C]

I'm just already sort of concerned for society as to what will happen if UNF ever runs off a match. March Madness tournament win. The levels of energy on that. Let's go from Matthew Driscoll.

[A]

I think people would actually die. I think, I think power plants could be fueled by it and lives would be lost as a result of it. But you do raise a good question here. And so I should ask for journalistic thoroughness here. When Matthew Driscoll gave that iconic let's Go. Right. This is 2017, the one with a zillion O's that made him the greatest. The let's Goat. Did they win that game? Uh, no.

[C]

They lost by 16.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, that's, that's, that's perfect. Jeremy Tache, thank you for your reporting.

[C]

Wait, am I allowed to real quick try to redeem myself?

[A]

No.

[C]

With one final better. Let's go.

[A]

No, no. But I have a feeling. Let's go. Ok, we stop.

[C]

Okay.

[A]

At the end of this episode, I found out that I need to look inward at my own vocabulary. Because the number one phrase that I absolutely abuse and beat into the ground through sheer repetition is lol. You know, lol. Lol. Laughing out loud. LOL is all over my texts. And I always say lol. Ironically, obviously, because I would never be the type of person who says it sincerely. I say it as a parody of someone who would say it sincerely. I say LOL all the time as a joke. But after hearing from the deafeningly sincere Matthew Driscoll and Jeremy Tasche, I realized something important. If you say any phrase often enough, it can no longer be considered ironic. In fact, if you say any phrase often enough, it just becomes who you are. Lol. This has been Pablo Torre Finds Out a Meadowlark Media production. And I'll talk to you next time.

[C]

Sam.