to put the idea to music with bassist Mario Cipollina, guitarist Chris Hayes developed new music for the final song on his own. "Walking on a Thin Line", written by Andre Pessis and former Clover member Kevin Wells, was about the poor treatment of veterans who returned home from the Vietnam War. "Finally Found a Home", inspired by an offhand comment about "ticky-tacky" houses near an airport, later progressed into a song about having a career in the music business. Saxophonist/guitarist Johnny Colla wrote the music for "If This Is It" alone and gave the song to Lewis, who penned the lyrics on a tour bus. "You Crack Me Up", written by Lewis and Cipollina, was based on various people the band had encountered in the parking lot of Uncle Charlie's, a bar the band had frequently performed at before they achieved mainstream success.Sports also contains cover versions of "Heart and Soul", written by the songwriting team of Mike Chapman and Nicky Chinn, and "Honky Tonk Blues", written by Hank Williams. ProductionSports was self-produced by the band after their manager, Bob Brown, felt the band's own demos were better than the producers they'd been considering. The ethos behind the production of the album was to meld old techniques and instrumentation with modern technology, inspired by hearing the use of a LinnDrum on Steely Dan's 1980 song "Hey Nineteen". The juxtaposition of an old style vocal sound with the modern LinnDrum on "Bad Is Bad" provided guidance for the rest of the album's production. Lewis's idea to record "I Want a New Drug" with a sequenced bass line and drum machine was initially met with displeasure by both bassist Mario Cipollina and drummer Bill Gibson. The first attempt at this was deemed unsatisfactory and the song was re-recorded with the full band, but after the album was mixed, Lewis decided that both "I Want a New Drug" and "The Heart of Rock & Roll" needed to be re-recorded with sequenced bass and drums, adding a slight tempo increase in the process. The band initially used a kick drum to create the simulated heartbeat sound for "The Heart of Rock & Roll" but were unhappy with the results, so engineer Jim Gaines and keyboardist Sean Hopper spent six hours developing a new heartbeat sound using various other means. Lewis later referred to the album's production style as "cut and paste, put together