The Lin Songs Remain the Same: They Fall Short There was Jeremy Lin on Wednesday night, blood streaming from his nose after taking a hit from Omri Casspi during the Knicks" victory over the Cavaliers. Walking off the court, he tilted his head back, two red streaks spilling into his mouth - a hero defeated. But before long he was back in the game, and it was clear: here is a man in need of a worthy theme song. Plenty have tried in the weeks since the beginning of Linsanity, the phenomenon that has sprouted a cottage industry of tribute songs by amateur singers and rappers, proving how quickly the combination of extreme fandom and low barriers to entry can create a glut. But Lin poses a problem for quick-on-the-draw songwriters. He has a hard-luck story capped with sudden triumph, sure, but it's still new; he's not yet worthy of a "Hurricane" à la Bob Dylan. He has no signature trick or maneuver, no dance move (though he once did a semicredible Dougie). He will never have his own version of "Do the John Wall." Mostly, he has an astoundingly flexible last name. The song parodies with groan-worthy titles abound: "Lin on Me," "All He Do Is Lin" and so on. "Jeremy," the spot-on Pearl Jam parody by Jimmy Fallon, gets a pass here, if only for describing Lin's early years "at home shooting free throws and 3-point shots/waiting for a job/name not yet a pun." Between that and the crude highlights of his biography - compounded by the crude stereotyping of his ethnic background - and the steady flow of music inspired by Lin becomes dull quickly. A few songs stand out from the rest of the scrum, though, sometimes for grace, sometimes for ambition, but rarely both. "FTW JLin," by Tommy C, is one of the most polished, a bright pop-soul song that emphasizes inspiration and Auto-Tune. Getting points for good intentions is "Jeremy Lin the Musical," created by and starring Kevin Yee, which compresses the Lin fable into a few minutes of Broadway-style routines in which gratuitous racism is trumped by awful verse: "When I shoot this ball/ right through the hoop it will fall." Of the many semimotivational rap songs, among the best is "Linsanity," by J Ritz, which can't decide if it's a celebration of Asian sports heroes - "Shout out to Wataru Mikasa "cause he paved the way" (It's Misaka, actually.) - or another purveyor of kneejerk stereotype, "So what if his eyes are slanted/he's got a great court vision." No major rapper has yet used Lin in a rhyme, it seems, though that should change soon enough. Fred the Godson, we're waiting. If there has been a true candidate for a Lin theme song, it has been "Nick of Time," by the Chinese-American rapper Jin, who briefly caused a stir of his own several years ago when he had an impressive run of victories on BET's "Freestyle Friday." The song is solid and thoughtful, less about Lin specifically than about a higher power: "I don't just play to win/Every time I lace up yeah I play for him." Lin must have been pleased: he and Jin spoke on the phone Thursday, and Lin thanked him on Twitter. (Jin also doubled down with his N.B.A. raps this week with "Doin" the Landry." But "Nick of Time" has to share the spotlight with "The Mighty Lin," by Julian Velard, a slice of toothless jangle pop that was actually commissioned by the Knicks. It should be considered an act of extreme restraint, and charity, that the job didn't go to JD & the Straight Shot, the blues band fronted by James L. Dolan, chairman of Madison Square Garden. It's a spectacularly odd choice. Hip-hop is the de facto soundtrack of the N.B.A., so to give Lin a theme song that sounds like a whimsical 1970s singer-songwriter ramble is a gratuitous choice. It does the subtle work of setting Lin apart from the rest of his peers, a not accidental commentary on his otherness. Worse, it's the most swaggerless theme song one could imagine: it sounds as if it should be for a golfer, or a croquet star. Apart from a YouTube video in which he plucks out a couple of seconds on piano, there's no evidence Lin could make his own theme song, which may surprise the Linsane. Lin is partial to Christian music: he cited the rapper Lecrae and the band Hillsong as favorites in a recent interview. Either could have done a suitable job for the Knicks if they had called. Lecrae is a talented rapper, and Hillsong, while tame, builds songs that are ambitious in scale and energy. Maybe Lil Wayne, the ESPN obsessive who once celebrated Kobe Bryant in song, could have been coaxed into a tribute. For now, though, the definitive record is still out there to be made, at least until songwriters figure out what rhymes with Novak.