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Jimmy Fallon's "Ballad of Travis Kelce" Celebrates the Tight End's Iconic Unearthed Tweets
Fallon's hilarious song honors the Chiefs tight end's joyful mid-00s tweets about feeding squirrels and chillin' with his "boi" Reggie.
As tight end for the Kansas City Chiefs, Travis Kelce has been a major football star for years (never forget his 2016 dating show on E!, Catching Kelce). But in the months between his 2023 Super Bowl victory and his team's 2024 win against the San Francisco 49ers, Kelce officially became a household name.
Whether you know him as an athlete, that guy Taylor Swift is dating, or the March 4, 2023 Host of Saturday Night Live, you and just about everyone in the U.S. became aware of Travis Kelce by late 2023. And like countless people who've skyrocketed to massive fame before him, Kelce and his social media accounts inevitably became the subject of intense scrutiny. Yet the resurfaced posts from X, then known as Twitter, didn't make headlines for objectionable content.
Unless, that is, you take umbrage at his assertion that "The most powerful weapon on this earth is the human soul on fire!"
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Kelce's tweets also caught the attention of Jimmy Fallon back in November 2023, so he and The Roots vocalist Tariq "Black Thought" Trotter joined forces to deliver an amazing song about it on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.
"The Ballad of Travis Kelce" is a song about the Chiefs tight end's joyful tweets
Kelce's old tweets made news because they're joyful without pretense—a celebration of simple American pleasures like chain restaurants, sassy squirrels, and bowling. As Fallon explained to the Tonight Show audience, "They're just really wholesome and fun, and people are loving them." Loved them so much that Fallon and his house band simply had to share them in song.
Trotter got them started with a slow-tempo rhyme: "Travis used to tweet a lot—nah, he wouldn't quit."
That's when Fallon came onscreen to quote one of Kelce's most viral tweets, from 2011: "I just gave a squirle a peice of bread and it straight smashed all of it!!!!"
"Now this guy's with Taylor Swift and, yeah, the two are dating," Trotter continued, as Fallon chimed in the end of Kelce's tweet: "I had no idea they ate bread like that! Haha [Hashtag] crazy!"
Trotter played narrator for the remainder of the song, setting it up as Fallon finished each line with a quoted tweet:
"Sometimes they were simple, and sometimes they were clever: 'Haven't been to a Dave n Busters in 4ever.'
His tweets were pretty normal, and nothing super edgy: 'Plane ride was coo, got a nice meal 'n' chilled with my boy Reggie.'
"Sometimes he was really deep—the whole world he'd inspire: 'The most powerful weapon on this earth is the human soul on fire!'"
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Then he'd take it down a notch, and keep things super light: 'Bout to get some Taco Bell, and see what's poppin' tonight!'"
May we all love something as much as Travis Kelce loved tweeting song lyrics in 2009 (and many of us tweeted song lyrics in 2009, no judgment here)! Kelce's then-unguarded enthusiasm is a pleasure to behold.
Watch the entire "Ballad of Travis Kelce" above—and watch several of Kelce's SNL sketches below.
Straight Male Friend
Please Don't Destroy - Self Defense
American Girl Café
