Gary got on with Michael like a house with rising damp
With the Premier League winding up this weekend, attention
will soon shift to The World Cup and everything that goes with it. Of course it’s
the football that matters, but it’s impossible to ignore the media paraphernalia
that goes with it, of which the primary example is of course the World Cup
song.
For this year’s effort the FA have shown their usual
imagination by roping in the one man ‘Can I have a Knighthood?’ campaign that
is Gary Barlow, and the result is like every electron in the former Take That
man’s body – bland.
Despite the fact that it’s not even a new song or a
substantial reworking of an old one, ‘Greatest Day’ seems to perfectly fit our
footballing era. Like most things involving Barlow it’s ever so slightly
insipid – Our Gary’s default expression being that of a man who’s mildly narked
that you haven’t used his favourite brand of tea bag. Like most X-Factor montage songs, any inspirational qualities it may have once had have been destroyed by a thousand saccharine shots of teary meetings with elderly relatives. Rather than a battle cry to go into battle for Harry and St George, it’s
the sort of song that might inspire you to do your tax returns early (or possibly not in Gary’s case).
Gary Barlow and friends' 2014 World Cup song
But then looking back, almost every World Cup song seems to
perfectly fit its era. ‘Back Home’, recorded when England were still Champions
seems like the last confident cry of a world that would soon be thrown into the
turmoil of the 1970s. England’s 66 heroes still for the most part sport
short-back and sides, and perhaps for the last time in footballing history could
be mistaken for accountants. They seem
blissfully unaware that they are set for the World Cup wilderness, and soon we’ll
see the browns and oranges of 70s decay and worst of all particularly for the
Charlton brothers, the Charlie George mandatory shoulder length hair.
England's 1970 World Cup effort
1982’s ‘This Time (We’ll Get It Right)’ is almost an apology
for the past 12 years of international mediocrity, and in many ways is a
companion piece to ‘Back Home’. It’s the song of miscreant youths forced into
smart knitwear, apologetic for their 70s excesses and inadequacies and not living
up to high minded ideals of well-dressed Englishman politely dominating
football.The likes of Stan Bowles and Frank Worthington are no more, and England
are serious about football again, without really convincing.
We'll Get It Right This Time - Errm... No you won't.
On to 1986, and the hopelessly kitsch ‘We’ve Got The Whole
World At Our Feet’. This is a wonderful window into a lesser explored element
of society’s 1980s divisions. The inspirational brass is still there one
imagines at the behest of a moustachioed man in a blazer, even as it's incongruous with images of carnage on the terraces – or the counter-culture which would
eventually have to be embraced by the establishment in the 1990s. One imagines that the discussion was more about what aperitif to order rather than New Order.
The Whole World At Their Feet - And Maradona's Hand
Which chronologically brings us to the best of them all,
1990’s ‘World In Motion’, by England New and comedian Keith Allen (who added the now familiar 'Eng-ger-land'). The
contrast with 1986’s effort couldn’t be greater – there’s a sense of optimism in
the song that doesn’t consist of men in ill-fitting suits with painted on
smiles. The song’s lyrics, with lines like ‘Love’s got the world in motion and
I know what we can do’, and ‘Express yourself (you can’t be wrong)’ portray an
England keen to enjoy football and life. The squad actually seem to enjoy
themselves in the video, especially John Barnes on rapping duties.
England New Order - World In Motion
A good band actually doing the song and that England team’s success
have obviously helped in making this the most nostalgic World Cup song, but it
also represents a peculiar moment in English football – one in which it gained
its intellectual self-confidence with a blossoming of fanzines and an anarchic
sense of fun that allied it with music, comedy and TV. This ultimately
culminated in books like Nick Hornby’s ‘Fever Pitch’ and on TV with Baddiel and
Skinner’s ‘Fantasy Football League’ which weren’t just the mainstream
celebrations of football we’re now used to, but unashamed expressions of the
obsessions of real fans.
We Still Believed - Once
Come 1998 and due to a brilliant Euro 96 wiping out the
failure of 1994, English football had taken that sense of optimism and run with
it. The reprise of Baddiel and Skinner and The Lightning Seeds Euro 96’s anthem ‘Three Lions’ was the main song, and it can be seen
as the pinnacle of late 90s optimism. Those who’d been out to ‘have a bit of a
laugh’ in the early 90s were now feted by the establishment.
Difficult as it to imagine a nice young man called Tony Blair had been elected,
the Premiership was brilliant to watch and not yet a moneyed behemoth. England
with Beckham, Owen and Shearer were an exciting team and there was a sense that
good had triumphed and that all was right with the world.
Fat Les - Vindaloo
Yet it couldn’t last – Looking back‘Three Lions’ and Keith Allen’s
alternative song ‘Vindaloo’ essentially repeated previously expressed sentiments
to a wider audience now consuming football as a commodity. England exited to
Argentina and were heroic failures. Football being cool now meant that it was
for everyone, and thus it was time to cash in.
The anarchic spirit that had created football’s cultural
revolution had been co-opted and would become the endless Premier League hype
of the 2000s, with those who’d contributed to that cast aside like the England
team as the likes of Tim Lovejoy began to pollute football culture by smearing
Sky branded excrement all over the beautiful game. Beckham metamorphosed from a talented young player to a
celebrity who’s every trip to the barbers was obsessed over by 2002. Instead of
Baddiel and Skinner it was the more family friendly comedy duo of Ant and Dec
with ‘On The Ball’ and unrelenting positivity.
Ant & Dec were 'On The Ball'
There’s still something to love about ‘On The Ball’ though –
Ant and Dec still have the glint in their eye that was yet to be extinguished
by a decade shilling for Simon Cowell, plus the very concept of Tord Grip, let alone
Dec dressed up as him is hilarious.
As England fans the cult of ‘the golden
generation’ was still young and so the optimism felt justified. After all, we
had just beaten Germany 5-1. It’s only in retrospect that the cult of ‘this is
our year’ and morons uncritically informing us that we had ‘the best in the
world’ would make you want to drown them in their own hair product.
A Rubicon had been crossed though– the World Cup (and the
media surrounding it) was now no longer the preserve of those who could
construct an argument as to why Beckham’s lack of pace left the midfield too
static, could reminisce about the Bulgarian side of ’94 or recount endless
unpleasant trips to Millwall. Football had moved from Baddiel and Skinner’s
sofa to Jonathan Ross’s.
Embrace - World At Your Feet
2006’s song was to put it bluntly, forgettable. In case you
were wondering it was Embrace’s ‘World At Your Feet’. Nope, me neither. Yet it
continued the tradition of getting in someone who the FA thought everyone
liked, with Embrace being chosen because of the explosion of mainly crap indie
bands between 2004 and 2006. The result was a song that managed to sum up
England’s performance at the tournament perfectly. Inconsequential.
2006 did have some impact on the World Cup song oeuvre –
this was the World Cup that definitively turned all but the readers of Take A
Break against ‘the golden generation’. By
2010 we needed something that harked back to the glory days, not of 66 but of
the 90s – when fans loved England, chanted for the three lions and even the
middle-classes wanted to be seen in over-priced polyester.
Shout, Shout... We're Going Out!
With Fabio Capello banning one, the call went out to James Corden and Dizzee Rascal. The result
wasn’t the worst thing Corden did during that World Cup, but that’s only
because his attempt to ape Baddiel and Skinner with the modestly titled ‘James
Corden’s World Cup’ was like being trapped in the plumbing of a celebrity enema
clinic.
That show was part of a wider media project to bring back
the 90s enthusiasm and quirkiness that had somehow been lost amid the billions
of the Premier League, promotion of ‘WAG Culture’ and events like the 39th
Game debacle. The song was part of this, as it threw every good element of 90s
England songs at a wall until they’d been bled of all charm. The off-beat
rapping of Black Grape’s ‘England’s Irie’ was reproduced by Dizzee, the song was
a cover of Tears For Fears ‘Shout’, a direct contemporary of New Order in the
80s New Wave scene. Corden was cast as a latter-day Keith Allen, the every man
who happens to be pals with celebs and can coral them into his projects.
James Corden probes Simon Cowell
Needless to say it was terrible. Corden’s entire recent
career seems to stem from the fact that celebs and TV executives are well aware
that celeb culture is ripe for mocking, but aren’t willing to stop promoting
it. Thus we were fed James’ peculiar brand of sycophancy, with him standing as ‘one
of us’ bantering with England’s players while ensuring they knew they’re still
our heroes.
The hilarious disconnect between the cheerleading of Corden and
pals and what England fans actually thought of the team mirrored the general
sense of exasperation of everyone at the prosperity of the 2000s being a mirage.
Corden’s continuing employment as colon cleaner to the stars perhaps sums up
how nothing really changed because of it.
That sycophancy was this week of course daubed all over the
TV in the BBC’s apocalypse inducing documentary ‘When Corden Met Barlow’. The aforementioned Gary Barlow
is these days the establishment choice for everything from the Jubilee to the
World Cup, Cameron’s Britain’s court musician.
Carlton Palmer - Drummer extraordinaire
As such once again we have a World Cup song that perfectly
befits our times – one of forced turgid optimism. Of course as usual it's for charity and loads of former England stars are involved (including Michael Owen, who may well be Barlow's lack-of-soulmate) so one shouldn't be too against it, but sod it, it's about as much fun for us as the early 2000s were for Barlow. It's a fart in a Range Rover - expensively upholstered but full of shite, smugness and hot gasses.
One can imagine Gary and Cameron
sharing a low alcohol beer and muttering “Oh good try… good try…” as an aimless
ball evades Wayne Rooney for the tenth time against Costa Rica, before indulging in a bit of earnest self congratulation as England limp out.
For the rest of us he provides a mild urging to forget all
our worries and get behind the boys – even if part of those worries are
precisely the fact that our representatives are a bunch of millionaires who are
part of a game that gets father away from the one we feel nostalgia for every
year.
It’s a song that politely asks us to sit and enjoy the
football – and don’t get too upset or over enthusiastic, that everything will
be fine if you buy into the myth, smile and cheer politely. In fact it’s a
musical ‘Keep Calm and Carry On’ poster.
We’re now so far from those optimistic days of the 90s that
it’s difficult to get too upset, even as a man as anti-fun as Barlow stretches
his beige tentacles further into popular culture. Best to just ignore it all
and maintain a degree of healthy cynicism.
However if Gary and his best pal Dave go out there for the
tournament, perhaps we should get together to cover Del Amitri’s Scottish World
Cup 98 classic ‘Don’t Come Home To Soon’?
Del Amitri's Scottish Melancholic Anthem
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