Matthew Kelly1001 Albums You Must Die Before You Hear
#111: Liverpool FC – Anfield Rap (1988)
MATT KELLY could write a book about the thoroughly awful phenomenon of English football club singles, but wisely chooses to stick to an especially risible example.
I think I’m only allowed to use the “rap with a capital C” line once during this entire list. I have to be careful about which entry I allocate it to, but I’m fairly confident that this is the one.
American readers have no idea how lucky they are to be insulated from the weird and wild world of English Football club singles, irritatingly upbeat novelty songs cluelessly aping some musical trend of the time where the draw is the ineptitude of the footballer’s performance. I could do a Top 20 of these – in fact I might have by the time the list wraps – but we’ll have to wait another day to learn all about the joys of ‘Fog On The Tyne’, ‘We Are The England Fans’ and the fearsome ‘England Are Jolly Dee’, which I warn you is not for the faint-hearted.
Right now we are concerned with ‘Anfield Rap’, and when you consider that Liverpool FC also did a song actually called ‘Pass And Move It’s The Liverpool Groove’, I hope you’ll appreciate that ‘Anfield Rap’ must be pretty damn shit to get the nod. Would you like to hear the famous “You’ll never walk alone” chant reinterpreted as a hip-hop hook? Well, you’re going to, as well as hearing Australian midfielder Craig Johnson talk about his small penis and rhyme “blues” with “disagrees”. To give you a fuller idea of the calibre of rhyming on offer, here’s left winger John Barnes on the microphone:
“I come from Jamaica, my name is John Barn-es
When I do my thing the crowd go bananas”
The level of delusion required for an act of hubris like this can be laid at the feet of manager Bill Shankly who opens the track with a clip saying, “My idea was to build Liverpool into a bastion of invincibility. Had Napoleon had that idea he would have conquered the bloody world.” My problem is the quote doesn’t go far enough – I really wanted to hear how operating out of Liverpool would have turned Napoleon’s Russian campaign around. What we get instead is the track peculiarly focussing not on football but on the different accents of the players as there were only two Liverpudlians on the side at the time. So you’ll learn that there’s two scousers, one South African, a Jamaican, four Scots, a Dane, an Australian, three Irishmen and a London boy on the squad. Gripping stuff. When commentator Brian Moore delivers the best verse of the song you know you’re in grim territory.
One of those football songs the opposing side is likely to get more out of.
