I'm sure Nikki Yanofsky is a nice woman. But she is driving me batty. Her song I Believe is not just the theme song of Canada's Olympics coverage, it is the song that has permeated seemingly every moment of televised coverage of these Games. 

We hear it going into commercials, we hear it coming out of commercials, we hear it accompanying pre-packaged clips about Canadian athletes. Most annoyingly, we inevitably hear it about five minutes after a Canadian athlete has won gold, as the backdrop to a hastily edited montage of the athlete's performance and celebration. We get it, Broadcast Consortium. You paid for this song, you're going to play it. And when the Olympics are on several networks for two weeks almost non-stop, that makes for a lot of chances to Believe. 

But there's something about a song that is so very contrived that is just off-putting. Maybe it's that the networks were running "Do you believe?" commercials for months before the Games started. Maybe it's that coverage is interspersed with ads for "Believe" apparel that is helpfully sold at CTV's website. 

Maybe it's that Alan Frew, the lyricist, also penned a song about the Toronto Maple Leafs at their request. (Apparently if a corporation needs a song for a specific reason, Frew is the go-to guy.) Maybe it's that the song is the top downloaded song on iTunes, which says something sad about our tastes as a nation. I can't put my finger on it, but, really, I Do Not Believe. That's a T-shirt I would buy.