Well, since I have been boring the rest of my family rigid this last week, by watching an hour or two of the World Athletics Championship every night, I thought it only right that this Playlist should be all about sports.
Given that this is a UK based site, I give you fair warning, football will feature heavily in this one....
1. Bruce Springsteen: Born To Run
But to get things under starters orders, we are going with the most obvious, and basic, of athletics (running) analogies. I make no bones about it - this is a classic and I am not at all worried about including it too often in these pages.
(Live in Hyde Park, 2009)
2. Sultans Of Ping FC: Give Him A Ball (And A Yard Of Grass)
The Cork lads came blazing into the 90s with a wave of quirky indie singles and the well received debut album, Casual Sex In The Cineplex. While many know of the legendary tune Where's Me Jumper? - Give Him A Ball is perhaps less well known. Apparently the title is based on a quote by Notts Forest boss Brian Clough, about their talented Scottish playmaker, John Robertson. There are several more Clough phrases thrown into the rest of the lyrics too.
(Live in Cork, 2005)
3. Sports Team: Fishing
This was the second single off Sports Team's debut 2020 album, Deep Down Happy. They are a relatively new band, formed in 2016 at the University of Cambridge, and their music (thus far) is said to "romanticise Middle England" and all of its idiosyncrasies. It's a lively number, and I can't say for sure, but it does sound like they maybe owe our previous band a bit of a debt (and maybe Maximo Park too).
(Live session recording)
4. Lana Del Rey: Off To The Races
Lizzy Grant wanted her stage name to sound like the glamour of the seaside, and took it specifically from actress Lana Turner and the Ford Del Rey car. Off To The Races features on her second EP, confusingly called Lana Del Rey (the same as her debut album two years earlier). While not everyone was a fan of this tune, The Guardian wrote that it "turns Del Rey from vintage siren to R&B hoochie most convincingly. There's jazz in Del Rey's dextrous vocal, and new territory in the swoop and pow of [producer - Emile] Haynie's undertow."
(Official music video)
5. Drive By Truckers -Daddy's Cup
2004s The Dirty South is the album that drew Alabaman rock band, Drive-By Truckers, to my attention. Much of it is a gloriously festering exploration of southern US imagery - corrupt officials, extreme weather, racism, economic decline - all feature. Daddy's Cup is perhaps the one lighter note here. They had a three-pronged guitar / vocal line up at this stage, and this was the last track on the album by Mike Cooley, who wrote it about a father who instils a love of motor racing in his son. The album is a masterpiece, although somewhat ironically, this is perhaps one of my least favourites on it - but don't let that put you off - the bar is very high and there is a nice finger picked twangy country rock backing to this.
(Audio only)
6. Parquet Courts: Total Football
What's this - an American band writing a song about soccer, but actually referring to it as football? Singers, Andrew Savage and Austin Brown, met at the University of North Texas at a club called the Knights Of The Round Turntable - a place for people to share new records. My kind of club! Total Football is the lead off track on the bands sixth album, Wide Awake!, which was produced by Danger Mouse, who pushed them out of their comfort zone and added some funk to their post-punk sound. This song has an absolute killer bass line running through it too!
(Official music video)
7. Kurtis Blow: Basketball
Kurtis Blow became the first rapper to sign for a major label - Mercury in 1979 - and his single Christmas Rappin' became one of the first commercially successful hip hop singles (selling 400,000). As well as his own work, Blow has also produced work for the likes of The Fat Boys and Run DMC. He says Basketball came about because his then girlfriend (later wife) said, "You need to make a song about basketball, its the number one sport for African-Americans and nobody has done it yet." Although some of his co-writers got to throw in some of the famous players that are namechecked in the song, Blow insisted that his favourite, Julius 'Dr J' Erving was mentioned first. I'm going to go out on a limb here, and say that this isn't the greatest hip hop song you'll ever hear, but it is a bit of very 80s fun nonetheless.
(Official music video)
8. 10CC: Dreadlock Holiday
Okay, the sport is not included in the title, but this one counts because everyone who knows this song, knows it is the one about cricket - "I don't like cricket - I love it!" The lyrics come from the experiences the songwriters (Eric Stewart, Graham Gouldman and Moody Blues singer, Justin Hayward) had in the Caribbean, and especially the view of white men trying to be cool and hang out with the locals. It became the bands third number one in the UK.
(Official music video)
9. John Fogerty: Centerfield
Fogerty forged his path as the leader of legendary swamp rockers, Creedence Clearwater Revival. By the time they split in 1972, he had already written some of the great American rock songs of the 60s including Proud Mary, Bad Moon Rising, Fortunate Son. His solo career soon waned and he was well out of the spotlight by the end of the decade. But in 1985, after a hiatus of several years, he came back with the number one album Centerfield. The record was not without controversy, as songs Zanz Can't Dance and Mr Greed were said to be thinly veiled attacks on his old boss at Fantasy Records, Saul Zaentz. But the title track proved to be a hit with rock radio stations and (unsurprisingly) ball parks. He drew inspiration from Yankee Stadium - when he was growing up, there were no Major League teams on the west coast (there are 5 in California now), so many rooted for Yankees because legendary player Joe DiMaggio was from San Francisco.
(Official music video)
10. Half Man Half Biscuit: All I Want For Christmas Is A Dukla Prague Away Kit
There could only be one way to end this. Long time low-key indie darlings and Tranmere's favourite sons have long had a knack for punny titles and witty lyrics. The song, a play on the novelty 1940s Christmas song, All I Want For Christmas Is My Two Front Teeth, features on the 1986 Trumpton Riots EP. The Dukla Prague of the title were a top Czech team, formed in 1948 and disbanded in 1996, who had won 11 Czech league titles and made the semis of the 1966-67 European Cup. The song is a fantastic trip down memory lane of all the great toys of the 70s and 80s. "There was one in the gang who had Scaletrix, and because of that, he thought he was better than you." But after the frustration of setting that up, only to be defeated by a 'dodgy transformer' they resort to good old Subbuteo, including a team in the yellow and red of Dukla Prague.
(Slightly grainy video from Old Grey Whistle Test)
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