Football's Coming Home to Seven Nations Army's Waving Flag (Feature)

By John Bagratuni Jun 11, 2010, 12:54 GMT

Hamburg - South Africans have finally started to warm up to Shakira's official World Cup song Waka Waka as the choice of a decent anthem is just as important as the results on the pitch.

While in past players and coaches were close to making musical fools out of themselves with some obscure material, the taste has by now become more refined and left the singing to the professionals.

Shakira is a worldwide pop icon of the MTV/YouTube/iPod generation and she closed Thursday's opening concert together with South African Afropop group Freshly Ground with the Waka Waka (This Time for Africa) song.

The tune was slammed when it was launched in April as 'too Latino- sounding' for the first World Cup in Africa, but appears since to have grown on South Africans who have also been exposed to dozens of local World Cup-related songs.

The World Cup song dates back to 1966 and includes Un' estate Italiana by Edoardo Bennato and Gianna Nannini in 1990, The Cup of Life by Ricky Martin in 1998 and Boom by Anastacia in 2002.

Shakira gets fierce competition, though, from Somalia-born Canadian rapper K'naan's Waving Flag anthem. Some K'naan fans bemoaned that he changed the lyrics of the song from an original war/immigration-centred topic to the global feel-good song for the World Cup via a Coke ad.

But German Rolling Stone magazine also observed that it is 'a rare World Cup hymn which can get to you. It appeals to the singalong instincts but does it a few leagues above some of the dumb German offerings.'

That was a reference to recordings from comedian Oliver Pocher to pop band Sportfreunde Stiller. However, even they tower miles above some World Cup songs from the past which liked to involve players.

Back home by the England squad in 1970 reached number one, while Germany teams recorded dubious efforts such as Buenos Dias Argentina (Argentina 1978) or Fussball ist unser Leben (Football is our life - 1974).

The latter was written by Jack White but he didn't even gain half as much fame among football fans as an American namesake more than three decades later.

Originally a minor indie-rock hit in 2003, US band The White Stripes (Jack and Megan White) saw their Seven Nations Army with its irresistable guitar riff become a fan favourite at Euro 2008 after first getting attention among Belgian and Italian fans.

Some players also got hooked to it even though a majority of them appears to prefer mainstream music. Injured Germany captain Michael Ballack said in an interview that iPods have brought music closer to the players and many teams these days have a dressing room DJ.

The music and football link culminated in the wedding of David Beckham and Victoria Adams from the Spice Girls (who sung the official 1998 England song).

Noel and Liam Gallagher (Oasis) are die-hard Manchester City fans and German punk rockers Die Toten Hosen were shirt sponsors of Fortuna Dusseldorf.

Song-wise, New Order's World in Motion (England 1990) is arguably one the classiest World Cup song ever recorded.

The Guardian said in a blog that the song helped football 'from hooligan-shadowed minority pursuit to leisure product and lifestyle accessory. But in doing so World In Motion also killed the World Cup song. By 1998 England players were too high-profile, too in-demand, too wealthy to be corralled en masse into a recording studio.'

There is no official England song this time around as manager Fabio Capello and his staff 'want to be fully focused on the football.'

Instead, the fans can always make do with the Terrace favourite Three Lions (Football's coming home) by the Lightning Seeds/David Baddiel/Frank Skinner for England's Euro home event in 1996.

'As football songs go, Three Lions is certainly the best,' British football commentator John Motson once said, and Germany striker Juergen Klinsmann said that his team frequently sang the song on the bus to the stadium during the tournament.