"It's a song about loss!" Skinner, Baddiel and Broudie on 26 years of Three Lions - and updating it
It's coming home, it's coming home... You know how it goes. Wait, though: he came home, didn't he? In July, when the Lionesses beat Germany with a dramatic extra-time winner at Wembley to clinch Euro 2022. It was England's first major trophy since Bobby Moore, Jack and Bobby Charlton, Nobby Stiles, Gordon Banks, Geoff Hurst, etc. won the World Cup. in 1966. With all those years of suffering finally over, David Baddiel said he was glad his song, Three Lions, was "put to bed".
Guess what, however: he just got up again, for the World Cup in Qatar, and for Christmas. We'll come back to the new version - and Qatar - later.
But first, let's go back to the summer of 1996 when a wave of Britpop, new laddishness and of optimism swept over the country. The Football Association has asked Ian Broudie of the Lightning Seeds to write a song for the European Championship. It came with a catchy melody and a singable chorus. Comedians David Baddiel and Frank Skinner, who presented comedy football TV show Fantasy Football League, wrote haunting, plaintive and hopeful lyrics about what it was like to be an England fan . "It's coming home" referred to the fact that it was the first major international football competition to be held in the UK since 1966, as well as the hope that success and glory might return.< /p>
Fans embraced the song and took it to heart. When England beat Scotland in the group stage, it echoed around (the old) Wembley Stadium: "I've never been anywhere where something so spontaneous - that's our song , the people thing – happens. It was unbelievable,” says Baddiel.
Baddiel, Skinner and Broudie, a little less fresh-faced but perhaps wiser on the inside, came into the Guardian offices to talk about the song that never went away. "I'll let them talk most of the time," Broudie said softly. "They are good with words." He sits, staring wryly through his sunglasses, sometimes apologetically almost apologetically but…well, wisely. "There's a bit of community when you all sing, 'It's coming home.'
Baddiel and Skinner are good with words They josh and rib - sometimes it's like those years have melted away and they're back on that Fantasy Football League couch, a setting that transplanted their family life (they shared an apartment at the time) to TV. Good times. "I'm not much of a spectator, but I would say, for me, it was glorious," Skinner says. "I was scorching in 1996."
I wonder if there's something they look at less affectionately that makes them wince?" Are you talking about Jason Lee?" asks Baddiel.
"That doesn't make me wince, it makes me ashamed," says Skinner.
On their show they repeatedly ridiculed the hairstyle of Nottingham Forest player Jason Lee; in some sketches Baddiel appeared in blackface. It was, they admit, inexcusable bullying, sustained, ugly I won't dwell on it massively here: Skinner spoke about it candidly and at length in a recent Guardian interview; Baddiel has a program on anti-Semitism on Channel 4 on Monday in which he addresses his own racist transgressions by making visit to Lee to listen and apologize.
"It happened because we used to talk to each other dressing up as caricatures of footballers all the time, and we didn't think what was different about impersonating a black person. It was bad and wrong,” says Baddiel.
“We screwed up. We had conversations about how it went; I certainly don't want to defend it in any way,” Skinner says.
It's coming home, it's coming home... You know how it goes. Wait, though: he came home, didn't he? In July, when the Lionesses beat Germany with a dramatic extra-time winner at Wembley to clinch Euro 2022. It was England's first major trophy since Bobby Moore, Jack and Bobby Charlton, Nobby Stiles, Gordon Banks, Geoff Hurst, etc. won the World Cup. in 1966. With all those years of suffering finally over, David Baddiel said he was glad his song, Three Lions, was "put to bed".
Guess what, however: he just got up again, for the World Cup in Qatar, and for Christmas. We'll come back to the new version - and Qatar - later.
But first, let's go back to the summer of 1996 when a wave of Britpop, new laddishness and of optimism swept over the country. The Football Association has asked Ian Broudie of the Lightning Seeds to write a song for the European Championship. It came with a catchy melody and a singable chorus. Comedians David Baddiel and Frank Skinner, who presented comedy football TV show Fantasy Football League, wrote haunting, plaintive and hopeful lyrics about what it was like to be an England fan . "It's coming home" referred to the fact that it was the first major international football competition to be held in the UK since 1966, as well as the hope that success and glory might return.< /p>
Fans embraced the song and took it to heart. When England beat Scotland in the group stage, it echoed around (the old) Wembley Stadium: "I've never been anywhere where something so spontaneous - that's our song , the people thing – happens. It was unbelievable,” says Baddiel.
Baddiel, Skinner and Broudie, a little less fresh-faced but perhaps wiser on the inside, came into the Guardian offices to talk about the song that never went away. "I'll let them talk most of the time," Broudie said softly. "They are good with words." He sits, staring wryly through his sunglasses, sometimes apologetically almost apologetically but…well, wisely. "There's a bit of community when you all sing, 'It's coming home.'
Baddiel and Skinner are good with words They josh and rib - sometimes it's like those years have melted away and they're back on that Fantasy Football League couch, a setting that transplanted their family life (they shared an apartment at the time) to TV. Good times. "I'm not much of a spectator, but I would say, for me, it was glorious," Skinner says. "I was scorching in 1996."
I wonder if there's something they look at less affectionately that makes them wince?" Are you talking about Jason Lee?" asks Baddiel.
"That doesn't make me wince, it makes me ashamed," says Skinner.
On their show they repeatedly ridiculed the hairstyle of Nottingham Forest player Jason Lee; in some sketches Baddiel appeared in blackface. It was, they admit, inexcusable bullying, sustained, ugly I won't dwell on it massively here: Skinner spoke about it candidly and at length in a recent Guardian interview; Baddiel has a program on anti-Semitism on Channel 4 on Monday in which he addresses his own racist transgressions by making visit to Lee to listen and apologize.
"It happened because we used to talk to each other dressing up as caricatures of footballers all the time, and we didn't think what was different about impersonating a black person. It was bad and wrong,” says Baddiel.
“We screwed up. We had conversations about how it went; I certainly don't want to defend it in any way,” Skinner says.
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