After recruiting the help of funny-man Peter Kay, and breathing a last gasp of air into a waning career, crooner Tony Christie returns with, ‘(Is this the way to) The World Cup’, hoping to take this revamped version of ‘Amarillo’ to the German terraces.
A good world cup song must fulfil two major criteria: firstly, when listened to sober, it must be phenomenally cringe worthy, and provoke derisory eye-rolling of the highest degree. Box number one is successfully ticked here - a rewrite of a released pop song is never going to inspire much musical acclaim. Embarrassing lyrics were penned by two plucky England fans, Big George Webley, and Ian Stringer whose lines include ‘Sven’ll dance like old Nobby’, and ‘Stevie G score for me’. Enough said.
A World Cup song must also, when accompanied by a mere sniff of alcohol, or played anywhere within a 20 metre radius of any football, inspire you to grab the nearest person and immediately become an all singing, all dancing East London football hooligan. Again, Mr. Christie’s release does he trick – ‘Amarillo’ has proved a fantastic drunken Karaoke number for years, and thus there can be no better terrace singalong. And with lyrics such as, ‘We’ve got the greatest football league’ this revamped version serves to inspire a great sense of national superiority that could prove an anthem for drunken chanting all over Germany.
In all, although it will never be ‘World in Motion’, or ‘Three Lions’, and should be permanently destroyed post July 06, ‘(Is this the way to) The World Cup’ is a great football song, the soundtrack to another summer of inevitable disappointment.
Rating: 2/5
Release Date: 29th May 2006
Label: Tug Records
Info: www.isthistheway.co.uk
Words by: Thom Gulseven
