Tim: FOOTBALL! Yes, I know, but we have Eurovision and they must have their revenge. This year is Euro 2016, and here’s the official song.
Tim: Oh. That’s a bit of a let down, really. Well, the post-chorus is.
Tom: I think I’ve said this before, Tim: but the trouble with all football songs is that, ultimately, they’re not Three Lions. They’re not something you’re going to get every fan, from more than one nation, singing. Arguably, the closest to that was 1998’s Carnaval de Paris, but that was riffing on an existing chant, so it doesn’t really count: and Vindaloo, of course, worked for England but nowhere else.
Tim: Right, but of course it’s not Three Lions. Because Three Lions wasn’t just a football song. It was Britpop at the very peak of its popularity, it had two of the biggest comedians of the time at its helm, and most importantly it was built less on football another more on a genuine swelling of national pride and belief that England could actually win the competition.
So don’t compare football songs to that, because that situation is unlikely to ever come round again – Frank Skinner even said he regretted re-releasing it in 1998 for that reason. Compare football songs instead to, say, the official Euro 96 song, Simply Red’s notably underwhelming We’re In This Together, or perhaps the official World Cup 98 song, Ricky’s Martin’s The Cup of Life, which actually was a worldwide hit.
Anyway, enough history, back to the present. The vast majority of this song is great, and certainly a whole lot better than Simply Red – good beat, good lyrics, good melody, all round no complaints. That combined total of 36 seconds, though, is entirely and utterly awful.
Tom: Not going to disagree with you. I mean, the rest is mediocre; no-one’d buy it and no-one’d be doing a Big Singalong to it even if that 36 seconds wasn’t there, but… what the hell is that?
Tim: I know unforgivable is a hefty word to chuck around, especially in the direction of basically the world’s biggest DJ, but I just can’t really get past it, however good the rest might be. It completely kicks me out of the song. Sure, by the end of it there’s been enough of the good stuff to more or less push it out of the mind, but I really don’t want to hear it again. Which sucks – like I said, the rest of it’s great, and I would love a cut down version of this.
Tom: Alas, I guess it’s not to be, so I’ll just hope Coke get involved like they did in the 2010 World Cup.