There are several securities when international tournaments roll.
Fantastic goals, players and kits are some of the more obvious goals, but every World Cup or Euro qualifier that England qualifies also leads to everyone’s Spotify being clogged with football songs.
Having an official anthem for each tournament used to be a cherished tradition on these beaches, although it is more hit and miss nowadays.
This means that when a summer of football rolls around, we are all forced to upload the classics. We all have our favorites, but which one is the best? We dug into the archives to find out.
Back in 2006, former Tory MP Neil Hamilton – who had previously been involved in a series of sleazy scandals – along with his Christine were desperate for attention.
Their solution? Release a World Cup song.
The song is really disturbing, with lyrics like: “You have to kick it, don’t use your hand”, and “it is seen by people on their stories, with nylon shirts and big beer bellies.”
The free saved music video uses clips from the recording studio mixed with single photos of the couple in their local park. The appearance of pure despair in the eyes of one of the sound engineers tells the whole story.
When Dizzee Rascal released Boy in Da Corner back in 2003, he raised the bar for grime music forever and picked up a Mercury Award in the process.
Seven years later, he would collaborate with the most annoying man in the world to produce a disgusting track that managed to bastardize two much better songs in just three minutes and 19 seconds.
To be fair, Dizzee’s verses are not so bad. However, the Corden factor and the lazy hook mean that this is intended for the bottom of our charts.
Tony Christie was a household name in 2006, after Peter Kay’s charity cover of his biggest hit, Is This the Way to Amarillo, a year earlier.
Instead of writing a new song for the World Cup, Christie let go by changing some lyrics and printing some face masks. Which grips.
This had all the ingredients to become a smash hit, but it just did not click for any reason. Just like England’s golden generation, really.
England United was a supergroup consisting of Echo and the Bunnymen, Space, Ocean Color Scene and Spice Girls – the biggest act on the planet at the time.
The thing is, the song was just so meh.
This is basically cheating. You can not just take the most iconic wedding DJ song of all time and exchange a word for England for goodness sake.
The lyrics and video are a bit boys mags-y, but then again, so was Sven. Nor can you deny that some of the verses are quite witty.
The background track is also addictive and stretches at a nice pace. Perfect lounge music.
Bell & Spurling drops a couple of spaces for their unfortunate attempt to get the anthem back in 2018. The video featured Razor Ruddock, a terrible Harry Kane lookalike and shoehorn in the excavation of then shadow home secretary Dianne Abbott. Great ‘yer da’ energy from everyone involved.
The 1990s were a beautiful chaotic time. Nothing sums up this madness better than England’s Irie.
With the splinter group Black Grape after Happy Happy Monday, together with Keith Allen and (strangely) Joe Strummer. The lyrics do not make much sense but it does not matter.
Just grasp the madness.
It’s been a long time since England has had a really good, new tournament song.
Rhythm Method gave it a chance in 2018, prepared an old demo, added romantic lyrics about fans who threw chairs over European market squares and then got Wolf Alice and Swim Deep on the fan to be in the video.
For Euro 2020, they tried to beat all the home countries at once and asked fans to “show some love to your friends next door”. We appreciate that life.
This is the most classic England tournament song ever recorded.
In the video, the World Cup squads for three lions in 1970 resembled an extended pack of rats, with sharp smokes and spotless hair.
The song is not bad either. It also gets bonus points for being the first of its kind.
A classic of “holding the headphones to your head so you look like you know what you’re doing”.
The official song at the 1982 World Cup in England was released on a 16-track LP that also featured Kevin Keegan singing his smash hit Head Over Heels, as well as Glenn Hoddle tackling We Are the Champions.
England continued to crash in the second group game …
We never know how this missed an Ivor Novello Prize in 1998.
But vegans may not agree.
We are on the ball catching the absurdity of one of England’s best victories ever with the immortal line: “AND HESKEY DOES FIVE!”
There is a lot to like about this banger. The lyrics are playful without being so complicated and the background track has a euphoric horn section.
The music video is also a smash. In it, Ant & Dec kidnaps and then poses as Sven Goran Eriksson and his assistant Tord Grip. Of course, hilarity follows. Okay, maybe not.
The hypnotic snake hips, Tony Adam pumping iron in time, the two players desperately trying to hide from the camera like the weight machine. How can you not love everything about this certified 1980s toe?
Perhaps the reason is that the shocking exhibition of the Three Lions at the tournament itself is not held to a greater extent.
Far from “Going All the Way” at the 1988 European Championships, England lost all three of their group games – their worst performance ever. Ooooooffffffff.
When it comes to the impact of global terrace culture, no English song has been more influential than Fat Les Vindaloo.
To date, hundreds of sets of fans around the world have the anthem in their hymnal.
Fat Les themselves consisted of the blue bassist Alex James, Guy Pratt and the human embodiment of the 1990s, Keith Allen. It was simple but wonderfully effective and also had the best video on this list at some distance.
People have written hundreds of thousands of words about the meaning of this song and attached sweeping stories about England’s national consciousness to its four minutes of driving time.
Well, let’s add some more.
Three Lions do many things right. It has a chantable run, a couple of awakening key changes and a 10/10 video.
What makes it better than any other song in history, though, is capturing the bittersweet feeling of following a rather messy football team.
I know what you’re thinking.
“Matt, you just chose World in Motion as number one to justify spending £ 50 on Umbro’s summer partnership with New Order.”
You may be right. Then again, you might be wrong.
World in Motion was the song that helps make football cool again in an era of hooliganism, crumbling stadiums and a government that regarded supporters as sub-human scum.
Born out of these gloomy conditions, there was an indie, synth, dance banger with 16 bars of straight fire from John Barnes. It’s the goat. No ifs, buts or maybes.
