World Cup 2006
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World Cup Anthems
New Releases
World At Your Feet
Embrace
Released to mixed reviews, Embrace's official World Cup tune lacks the anthemic, terrace-like quality needed for a truly great footy anthem.
Fractured, like Rooney's metatarsal and about as skilfull as Peter Crouch taking on three Brazilian defenders in the box. Although Crouchy's robotic dance may have livened things up...
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This Time (Come On England)
InHiding
With the recent success of artists generating a buzz over the Internet, it's no surprise that the World Cup would coax out some tunes from the 'myspace' generation
The best of the bunch comes from Indie rockers InHiding who've abandoned their trademark guitar crunch for an acoustic sing-a-long. Not really one for the terraces, but it's certainly catchy and wouldn't be out of place on any landlord's juke box, even when the football's over.
We Are The Champions (Ding A Dang Dong)
Crazy Frog
Having driven grown men to madness with his chart topping Axel F single in 2005, the Crazy Frog, (who isn't Thierry Henry in disguise), is back with his version of the Queen classic although we don't remember the Ding-A-Dang-Dong bit in the original.
Irritating at best and actually worse than Macca's Frog Chorus hit although not as band as Kermit The Frog's, It's Not Easy Being Green. Hop off Crazy Frog eh?
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(Is This The Way To) The World Cup
Tony Christie
Crinkly crooner Tony Christie cheats the ref by re-recording his No.1 hit Is This The Way To Amarillo with some shoe-horned in footy lyrics. Sample line? "Every single player, holds our desti-nee, and they'll all be heroes, on plasma screen TV..."
Tony Christie says: "The new lyrics made me laugh." Yeah, us too Tony....
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Classic Tunes
Three Lions
Lightning Seeds
It may have been the 1998 unofficial England World Cup song but the Lightning Seeds collaboration with comedians Frank Skinner and David Baddiel fulfilled the first rule of footy anthems. The ability to be able to sing it on the terraces.
You can't resist lifting your arms as soon you hear the swelling chorus.."Three Lions on a shirt. Jules Rimet's still gleaming." And then there's the oft forgotten genius lyric: "We can dance Nobby's dance/We could dance it in France." Quite.
Vindaloo
Fat Les
Fat Les' Vindaloo, also out in 1998, was childishly simple in its construction, consisting of a mind-numbingly repetitive chorus of "nah-nah-nah" and the nursery rhyme lyric: "Me and me mum and me dad and me Gran/We're off to Waterloo/And a bucket of Vindaloo." It was another monumentally catchy track that was also simple enough to be sung by fans after some serious matchday pint-sinking.
World In Motion
New Order
Undoubtedly the most credible footy anthem of all time, New Order's World In Motion changed the genre when it became England's official 1990 Word Cup tune. Perhaps taking note of John Barnes' involvement in Liverpool's Anfield Rap two years earlier, Barney Sumner and the New Order lads restricted the England players to backing vocals and Barnesy (the Anfield Eminem), to a one-minute, shoe-horned-in rap. "Catch me if you ca-aan/Cos' I'm the England ma-aan/And what you're looking aa-t/Is the master pla-aan."
The first England footy song of genuine musical quality. Sadly Barnesy's career as a gangsta rapper came to a shuddering halt shortly afterwards when he lost out in an MC rhyme battle with Hoddle and Waddle.
Nessun Dorma
Luciano Pavarotti
The 1990 World Cup was also host to one of the most popular and unlikely footy anthems, Nessun Dorma by the singing waste disposal unit, Luciano Pavarotti. It was the BBC's theme tune for the finals and Pav's soaring vocals seemed to be the perfect backdrop to Gazza's tears...
Eat My Goal
Collapsed Lung
Despite their unsavoury band name, Collapsed Lung's novelty tune started life as the theme song to a Coca-Cola advert but proved to have legs after it was adopted by countless footy TV shows. The lyrics were particularly thought provoking: "I know you got soul, I know you can eat my goal." Quite. Innocent, harmless fun, unlike say, Roy Keane.
Related Links
ntlworld's Top 10
- WORLD IN MOTION
(1990) New Order - VINDALOO
(1998) Fat Les - BACK HOME
(1970) England World Cup Squad - ALLY'S TARTAN ARMY
(1978) Andy Cameron - NESSUN DORMA
(1990) Artist - THREE LIONS 98
(1998) Baddiel/Skinner/Lightning Seeds - WE HAVE A DREAM
(1982) Scotland World Cup Squad - YER MAN (1982)
Dana/Northern Ireland World Cup Squad - OLE OLA (1978)
Rod Stewart - THIS TIME (WE'LL GET IT RIGHT)
(1982) England World Cup Squad
Extra Time
The Songs We'd Rather Forget..
This Time (We'll Get It Right)
England World Cup Squad
It was the summer of 1982 and an England squad in tank-tops, moustaches and mullets, led by Kevin Keegan, crashed out of the tournament in the first round. "This time, more than any other time," they, er, didn't get it right. They did cause several footy fans to sprout perms though...
Top Of The World
Echo And The Bunnymen/Spice Girls
This was the official England World Cup song of 1998 making a bizarre pairing of surly scouse Bunnyman Ian McCulloch and the girlpower quintet. Despite the Spice Girls' fame, the song sank without trace. The tortuous lyrics may have been a factor: "In streets all over the nation/Are goals we painted on the walls/ Where all our hopes and expectations/Are the world inside a ball." Mmm..
We're On The Ball
Ant & Dec
Ant and Dec's We're On The Ball was released to coincide with the 2002 World Cup - which England lost because goalie David Seaman actually took his eye off the ball at the crucial moment of Ronaldinho's curling free kick. Ironic really...