Why Wales Wins At Football Tunes For Euro 2016

In less than a couple of hours thousands of people across Europe will lose their sanity as they spend the next few weeks shouting at their televisions whilst a bunch of grown men, who can't hear them yelling, chase a ball around a bit of grass in France, trying to kick it in between two white posts and a column from which a net hangs, whilst another bunch of men try to stop them doing it. 

To celebrate Euro 2016, just like every international football tournament before it, some musicians have had their own goes at celebrating the madness with what they do best - a song. This year I’m convinced that whilst Wales might be rank outsiders in the tournament, they’ve won when it comes to the tunes. They’ve got not one, not two, but three big songs for Euro 2016:

1. Manic Street Preachers – Together Stronger (C’mon Wales)

The Manic Street Preachers tune may not have found favour with every listener, but from my perspective Together Stonger (C'mon Wales) is excellent, for the following reasons:

1. It’s recognisably the Manic Street Preachers sonically and carries the tradition of some of the 'classic' football tunes like Three Lions and World In Motion.

2. It’s the most stirring of all the Euro 2016 tunes I’ve heard.

3. Thematically it fits very well with the rest of the bands output, namely name checking historical figures (in this case sporting ones) that many people won’t have heard off, injustice, dissapointment and managing to fit in lines that (in theory) don’t go with the music - something the Manics have made their trademark.

4. It manages to make reference to the song Can’t Take My Eyes Off You which has become an adopted tune of Welsh football fans.




2. Helen Love – A Boy From Wales Called Gareth Bale

“To be honest it’s the best football-inspired single since Eat My Goal by Collapsed Lung. And you can quote us on that,” say Helen Love’s label Alcopop! Records. Well I just did. “Na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na – he’s a boy from Wales called Gareth Bale!” proudly sing the band in this rather wonderful hooky punk pop explosion of fun. Sing-a-long with the video below.




3. Super Furry Animals – Bing Bong

The first of two unofficial welsh tunes, the band have described Bing Bong as “A Welsh folk idiom that we have appropriated, but its pronunciation has been partly inspired by the sonic motif of the talking robot, Twiki, in the 1979-81 sci-fi series Buck Rogers in the 25th Century.” The song was originally demoed for Euro 2004 in Portugal when Wales just missed out on qualification in the play-offs but has been resurrected now that the team are in the finals. It’s a bit bonkers, but kind of brilliant and sung in Welsh language. 

Three winners. Well done Wales. You deserve to do well in the tournament just because of these.

Music That Made Me #21- Manic Street Preachers - A Design For Life

It was one of those moments. One of those pull the car onto the kerb and listen in stunned silence moments; a moment where a song seemed more important than everything else in life.

I’d been a fan of the Manic Street Preachers pretty much since day one. Their mix of politicised intelligence, lipstick trash glamour and literacy stood out in a time when most bands were more interested in ‘avin it large than listening to songs about culture, boredom, alienation and despair. Lad culture was on the rise and the progression from the second summer of love by way of the Madchester scene to the vulgar Loaded-mag / coked up end of Brit Pop and all its vulgarities was unavoidable. Yet from day one the Manics had been different – they were a band to obsess over and to embrace wholeheartedly – a band whose fans were more likely to discuss the works of Camus than how they could party their arse off.

The Manics weren’t perfect either – guitarist Nicky Wire’s comment that “In this season of goodwill, let’s pray that Michael Stipe goes the same way as Freddy Mercury pretty soon,” was inexcusable, despite his protestations after that the quote hadn’t come out how he had intended. Their first two albums didn’t fully realise their potential, both being flawed in places, although both also had songs of brilliance. “We’ll release one double album that goes to number one worldwide. One album, then we split. If it doesn't work, we split anyway. Either way, after one album, we're finished,” they claimed, but that didn’t come true.

But it was after the first two albums that the Manic Street Preachers became something else. The Holy Bible was the sound of the band descending into the darkness of hell. Written in the main by guitarist Richie Edwards before he was hospitalised for depression, self-abuse, alcoholism and drug-use, The Holy Bible is a bleak piece of work full of self-loathing and narcissism. It dealt with subjects such as anorexia, the holocaust and a call for capital punishment and was released at a time when Blur were getting cheery and beery singing about holiday sex and park life whilst Oasis were about to proclaim that you and I were going to live forever. It was a compelling listen.

On 1 February 1995, a year after the release of The Holy Bible, Richie Edwards walked out of the Embassy Hotel, London and was never seen again. His car was found empty at a service station, near the Severn Bridge, a well-known suicide spot. Fans, including myself, loved Richey for articulating their shared feelings of us-against-the-world confusion. His disappearance affected me much more so than the death of Kurt Cobain – I could identify with the Manics in a way that I couldn’t with the other media-overloaded death of a rock star story of the early 90’s – that of Kurt Cobain of Nirvana.

After Richie’s disappearance I thought that it was the end of the Manic Street Preachers – Richie had been one of the most important creative parts of the band. Yet two years later, they returned as just a three piece – with a solid union of friendship and sadness amongst them. I remember exactly the first time I heard this song. I was driving my car towards Woking to catch a train for a gig in London. The radio announced an exclusive play of the new Manic Street Preachers single. Then they played A Design for Life. That was the moment I had to pull over. Sometimes the power of music is just too much to bear.

A Design for Life can be appreciated on two levels.

First as a life-affirming stadium anthem for the masses - beer swilling lads can bawl along to it no problem.

But it can also be appreciated with a sense of history - the back story is important. A Design for Life is a hugely dignified, bittersweet and poignant moment, where the Manic Street Preachers achieved everything they said they were going to do. Listen to those lyrics “Libraries gave us power then work came and made us free, what price now for a shallow piece of dignity? I wish I had a bottle, right here in my dirty face to wear the scars, to show from where I came. We don't talk about love we only want to get drunk, we are not allowed to spend as we are told that this is the end.” A Design for Life is an utterly compelling song about working class identity and conflict that is both brilliantly moving and powerfully intelligent. It was arguably the bands finest hour. It was a huge hit in the UK and paved the way for the band to have commercial success and find the mainstream.

I’m pretty sure Richie Edwards would have been very proud indeed.