World Cup 2010: England songs and anthems, your video guide

Are you in the groove yet?

There’s no official England World Cup anthem for the 2010 tournament, and you know what that means … the floodgates have been thrown open to the great, the good and the very, very bad to try and get their slice of the football pound, exploiting the ‘I’ll buy anything with a George Cross on it’ sentiment of all red blooded Englishman this summer.

Here are just ten of the literally hundreds of efforts posted on Youtube, many of which appear to have recession defying budgets and have involved a great deal of effort … oh well, I suppose it’s only once every four years:

The World Cup’s Waiting for You by The Skatoons
Rating:
If you like Ska, you’ll love this! Talk about high energy, The Skatoons really know how to get you going with their jumpy World Cup classic. “Come on England, the World Cup’s waiting for you.” The whole band throw themselves into this ‘home made’ video, but what they lack in production values than more than make up for in raw passion. First class.

It’s Our Game by Gerry Asmus
Rating:
It’s weird how you can just tell someone is Christian by looking at them … but if you were in any doubt after spying Gerry’s clean cut look, listen to this song and you’ll definitely get the full picture. Blimey! It could have been written by Sixpence None The Richer … jingly, jangly, happy clappy and woefully dull … this is no Three Lions. The pinnacle of the song has to be the major lift and the major fall to the wonderful lines “Come on England show them how to play foot-ball, football / Come on England it’s our game after all.”

Come on England by The Roars
Rating:
A bit of a strange video this one … it has two themes, ladies with skin tight clothing and dogs that need a little looking after. I used to live in Battersea so I love the Battersea Park shoot and references to the dogs home, but beyond that silliness there’s a half decent indie-pop anthem in this one.

Noble England by Rik Mayall
Rating:
Just bizarre. It’s not a standard anthem by any stretch of the imagination, it’s like one long intro, or is it an outro. The chant “Come on you England, you noble Englishman” gets into your head as this mixture of spoken word, electric guitar and offbeat graphics fuse together to create more of a piece of modern art than a song. However, there’s something about it that works, and although I doubt it will get much radio airplay .. it’s worth a listen.

This Time Under African Skies by Vivo!
Rating:
“This time under African skies, England’s gonna lift that trophy high / This time in the African sun, England’s gonna show that it can be done.” This is an inspirational rock number, and although a bit clunky lyrically in places, it gets the message across and has some ripping guitars and great chanting (although don’t they all)

England Expects by Ben Dover and Take It
Rating:
Now this video is so rude it got taken off Youtube … as you might expect vetran pornographer Ben Dover couldn’t just make a football song, he had to make a XXX rated video to accompany. However, you should never judge a book by its cover, and actually the dirty b*stard’s come up with a pretty good ditty here. Nice catchy chorus and some fine references to Rule Brittania and The Italian Job classic, The Self Preservation Society at the end.

A Cup Held High by MrFractionloose ft. Francis and Friends
Rating:
I’m always one to encourage youngsters to get out there and have a lot of fun … and that’s just what Francis (a young boy) and his mates have done on this record. Mixed by the unseen MrFractionloose, the song uses more autotune on the voices than Ashley Cole has had Porches, but this is still a simple yet intriguing effort.

This My Dear is England by ?
Rating:
Oh, this won’t stop … the refrain “This my dear is England” is a bit much after the hundredth repetition. It’s got a kind of sub-indie feel to it, a bit like an Ocean Colour Scene b-side but without the charm. “Heroes Live Forever, Make Our Nation Proud, Wear your Shirt with Pride and Sing Our Anthem Loud!” I have loked around and I can’t find the name of the artist or composer for this …

Bring That Cup to Me by Freddie Stacks
Rating:
Out of tune main vocal, out of tune harmonies and completely overdriven in the production stakes. There’s a nice selection of videos of old England games in the video … but the music is really generic and rubbish and has no hook … “so bring that cup to me / with England victory?” Oh, dear, oh dear, oh dear …

We are Engerland by The Three Brians
Rating:
Bloody hell, what’s this one all about? The Three Brians have blown the budget on the video here as they appear in masks, had special underpants printed and managed to even get their hands on a pub as a set for this bizarre yet brilliant film. The song has its merits, using the chorus from We Are Family whilst maintaining a distinctly Parklife feel throughout.

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Tags: Buzz, Music, songs, word cup

This entry was posted on May 27, 2010 at 7:23 pm and is filed under Buzz, Music. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.