Football and Music

I've been busy with other projects and editing the audio from my friends radio appearance. Never enough time in the day to get something posted.

- I was digging through my collection of CD’s (I have around 3000) looking for something else actually when I stumbled across something I forgot I had.

It is a compilation album released to commemorate the 1998 World Cup in France:

… and as a present for you out there… if you want it … is the entire thing to d/load for your collection.

Allez Ola Ole: the Music of the World Cup is a celebratory album with a samba beat. Apart from the Scottish and English contributions obviously. Africa is well represented too.

For those of you who don’t want all of it and just want a sampling, listen below. I’ve selected two stand-out tracks from the CD.

The first track is from a Brazilian act called “Skank“.

(Before I found the info about the band I did a google image search and photos of the obvious person came up.)

» Skank - É Uma Partida de Futebol

Next up one from the always excellent Youssour N’Dour:

» Youssou N’Dour and Axelle Red - Do You Mind If I Play

- For details on the whole album and a scan of the entire booklet look below the fold:

Read the rest of this entry »

There’s no need for me to remind you or go over this event:

Everyone knows about it and in England we’ve been trying to escape, or to bring new memories for.. what is it now… 42 years… It seems as if we cursed ourselves by winning it that once and the powers that be have decided that to increase our chances of winning it again is by bringing the World Cup tournament back again.

I for one would love it, ju.. Even if we don’t I would still love to see the spectacle of the whole thing back home again.

- For those of you who do want to read up about it again then the following links will guide you:

• Wikipedia - 1966 FIFA World Cup
• BBC On This Day - July 30th 1966
• YouTube - 1966 World Cup Final in colour

This being Football and Music I obviously want to look at the music from back then and profile a couple of contributers.

First up is the king of skiffle - Lonnie Donegan.   Part of a bio via allmusic guide:

…he invented a style of music, skiffle, that completely altered the pop culture landscape and the youth around him, and for a time completely ruled popular music through that new form. What’s more, his music, like that of Presley and Haley, was vital to the early musical careers and future histories of the Beatles, the Stones, and hundreds of other groups.

In relation to the World Cup he released a song about the 1966 tournament mascot (above left) - World Cup Willie.

» Lonnie Donegan - World Cup Willie         - Lyrics

..and the B side - a very philosophical song from Lonnie:

» Lonnie Donegan - Where In The World Are We Going

Next up - some instrumentals from the John Schroeder Orchestra.     Bio via allmusic guide:

Arranger/conductor/producer Schroeder does have a few pop/rock credentials: he wrote a number one U.K. hit for British singer Helen Shapiro (”Walkin’ Back to Happiness”) in the early ’60s, made the first licensing deal for Motown product on British shores, and formed Sounds Orchestral, which had a Top Ten hit on both sides of the Atlantic in 1965 with “Cast Your Fate to the Wind.” To the current space-age pop crowd, however, he’s known as one of the chief exponents of what the British call “easy” — recordings, mostly instrumental, which welded easy-listening pop arrangements to soul, rock, and psychedelic source material.

» John Schroeder Orchestra - On The Ball

…and the B side - the beginning sounds like the start of Vindaloo, were Fat Les influenced by this ?

» John Schroeder Orchestra - The Britannia March

I want to nominate somebody for the England Manager job.

This bloke has had more success - football/musically that is - than the other singing bosses.
…and as you will see from the following Ian Broudie has been associated with football and music before he came to mass public notice:

In what can be described as the musical equivalent of non-league footie, Ian was playing in a local band back in Liverpool. This group were described later on as a supergroup with a difference - it’s members became super after they left.

Big In Japan included Budgie (later of Siouxsie & the Banshees), Bill Drummond (KLF), David Balfe (Teardrops Explodes) and Holly Johnson (Frankie Goes to Hollywood) among it’s members.

They recorded a total of 7 songs during their short existence (1977-78). One single and one EP was released. Plus some other tracks emerged on some compilation albums.

- This one from them appeared on the compilation: Street to Street - A Liverpool Album. This instrumental track is named “Match Of The Day” and I am assuming that it was influenced by the telly programme… Maybe.

» Big In Japan - Match Of The Day

Next one up was actually on MoTD and brought Ian, under the guise of The Lightning Seeds, into the Championship when they played part of the track over their goal highlights.

» The Lightning Seeds - Life Of Riley

Finally his promotion into the musical Premier League with…

AH now that would be too obvious wouldn’t it. If I was lazy I would have posted that song when I started this site. But as you’ve seen with previous posts I go looking for the more undiscovered tracks.

Anyway everybody has that recording. No need to post it.
At this moment in time too, there really isn’t anything to be proud of or to be reminiscing about.

What I am going to post is some cover versions as mentioned on the Wikipedia page:

A Dutch band called “Hermes House Band” made a cover version which is called “Eagles on the shirt” or “Heroes in the shirts”

» Hermes House Band - Heroes In The Shirts
- There’s also a video.

A German comedy duo called “Mundstuhl” made a German cover version with the title “Adler auf der Brust” (The Eagle on the Chest) for the football club Eintracht Frankfurt.

» Mundstuhl - Adler auf der Brust

The final one…

A German group of musicians called themselves “Die Original Deutschmacher” made a cover version with the title “Das W auf dem Trikot” (The W on the shirt) which became the most popular song of the supporters of the football club Werder Bremen.

… I couldn’t find that one, but I did find a Ska version by a band called the Mad Monks:

» Mad Monks - Das auf dem Trikot

[Apart from these two] Up to now I’ve posted stuff relating to teams from Blighty.
I’m going to catch up to all the teams in the EPL and introduce a couple of foreign signings.

The first song has Ronaldinho, who some have called the “World’s Best Player” involved.
Well he’s considered the world’s best but in the matches I’ve seen him play I don’t see it. He’s currently at Barcelona and last Saturday morning he pulled out the game to be played that Saturday night because of “fatigue“. I watched - and switched over - when they were away to Getafe the other week because the match was so slow and dull. Ronaldinho was lazy and ineffective. Barca eventually lost that one 4-nil. There are rumours that the Catalans will get rid of him and unsurprisingly Chelski are interested in signing a player who sells more replica shirts and endorses more products than Derek.

But to the singing…

I found a music news item here which reports on the release of a CD in Brazil in relation to them and the 2006 World Cup.
Quoteth from the article:

“In Brazil, soccer and samba go together like love and marriage. And as World Cup fever grips the country, dedicated fans have plenty of choices of music for their game-day parties.

Record labels have issued a clutch of soccer-themed discs. Even star player Ronaldinho gets to show his singing skills….

… Also on the Universal label is “Samba Goal,” which boasts a selection of Ronaldinho’s favorite songs including one track he sings himself along with the group SambaTri.

The song, “Goleador” (Superscorer) speaks of his love for the sport. “I belong to the rhythm, either in the samba or in the game, I let my feet do the talking,” Ronaldinho croons.

» SambaTri & Ronaldinho - Goleador

More samba beats from Shakira this time. Along with Wyclef Jean and a remixed version of one of her songs, again for the 2006 World Cup. You’ll hear from the very beginning of the song that Shakira can belt it out when she wants. Powerful voice.

» Shakira - Hips Don’t Lie (World Cup Mix)

Sample lyrics: I’m a student of Pele, call me Pele player. /Eleven on the field with the heart of a gladiator…. Imma play till my knees grow low…
Everybody in the FIFA in the final state go / And my football jersey says Maradonna /And the crowd chants, sounds like spirits from Africa…

- Also have a look at the video and their live performance of the song at the end of the tournament.

So it seems that second choice Steve is given a second chance with the second choice team we’ll see that smug face on the bench on Wednesday and hopefully that will be his last appearance.

I am not posting this next one for that League Mickey Mouse Cup winning McClown, or for the current “team”, I am posting this because despite everything l will still support England forever more.

(I was going to post another example of a bad decision taken (music-wise) by the F.A, but after Saturday’s result I’ll hold that for our next potential embarrassment.)

If…if we somehow manage to somehow scrape a draw on Wednesday… (going by the latest reports he’s still doing his best to feck it up) everybody will know that we will not be there on merit.

..and if we do get through the whole of England will breath that obvious sigh of relief, then the first action after that should be to sack McClaren.

I wish he would do the honourable thing and resign because I know the spineless F.A will not take the bold action, but neither of these things will happen. They will keep their heads down, take all the flack, count their fat wage packets and slobber at the revenue to be made next summer.

Come next June and we (might) be watching an undeserved coach and a bunch of individual players because right now I can’t see them improving or having a chance of winning unless a new manager is brought in straight after the Croatia match.

So as we watch on Wednesday as the fans are hopefully chanting “Go, McClaren, go.” I want to remind you of a better time when we didn’t have a group of great individual talents, but we did have a great team.

Before the 1970 World Cup the England team released the first official single - that will be posted another time. As well as the single they all went into the studio to record an entire album. Again more about that in the future. For now a track from that LP sung by three England and West Ham team-mates:

» Peters, Moore & Hurst - Oh Sweet England How We Love You