Music

Diary: The World Cup doesn't need an official song

Jon Fisher | Saturday 3 July, 2010 13:58

When the FA decided in January that there was to be no official song for the English team’s World Cup run for the first time since 1966, the outcry was minimal, barely audible. News corporations struggled to summon the energy to make a story out of the announcement, relying on soundbites from ‘the public’ as inane as “It seems a little petty. Songs like ‘Three Lions’ and ‘Vindaloo’ have been great for the fans”—an interesting one as neither song was endorsed by the FA for a World Cup campaign.
There were sentences from the mouths of Peter Hook, Rik Mayall and Jimmy Pursey of Sham 69 which failed to rouse any rebellion from the masses, perhaps because they were largely self-serving.

Hook argued that the tradition added to the experience (having been involved in 1990’s ‘World In Motion’), Mayall had his own unofficial song to sell (look it up on Youtube if you dare – it involves chain mail) and Pursey chose to use the platform to decry Embrace’s ‘World At Your Feet’, used by the FA at the last tournament in 2006 (Sham 69’s effort entered the charts seven places lower..).

Whether professional jealousy or a cynical collection of an interview fee, Pursey made a decent argument. Our last two campaigns would’ve ended exactly the same way had the British population not been subjected to the monotony of Ant & Dec’s ‘We’re On The Ball’ or the aforementioned ‘World At Your Feet’, a song so bad it sent Embrace into a hiatus.

Hook did too, though. A great song will unite a nation for a summer—New Order in 1990 and Baddiel, Skinner & The Lightning Seeds in 1996. My advice to you: listen to those and ignore all others. The FA, for once, had the right idea.

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