Back in the 1970s some crazed marketing man thought that money could be made with the idea of having professional sports teams sing. It was a trend that began in Britain with the 1970 England World Cup squad singing “Back Home”, which hurtled to number one in the British charts, proving that the crazed marketing man was probably right…
This was followed by such gems as Chelsea’s 1972 “Blue is the Colour”, the West Ham United Cup Squad’s 1975 rendition of “I’m forever blowing bubbles” and Liverpool FC’s 1977 FA Cup single “We Can Do It”. The idea travelled to the United States in the 1980s, resulting in some spectacularly awful videos that I feel the need to share with you. The Super Bowl Shuffle by the 1985 Chicago Bears is a classic.
The Los Angeles Rams’ “Let’s Ram it” the following year is also right up there with the world’s greatest musical disasters…
However, I think the ultimately awful sports team song has to be Team Lotus in 1972, not simply for the quality of the singing, but also for the inanity of the words. It is magnificently bad in its own sweet way.
joeblogsf1 
which reminds me…
The good
the bad
and the ugly
(Glen Hoddle/Chris Waddle)
and the funny
One of Dany Behar’s predecessors 😀
Certainly a new dimension in entertainment 🙂
regards,
What about “World in Motion” with New Order as the true Number 1?
Is the Seb Vet in the background at 1.20? Aged minus……..
Thank god for Freddie Mercury and Queen, the standard go-to song for World Championship celebrations 😀
Joe! Say it ain’t so! The 85 bears shuffle was nothing short of brilliant! Although I could be biased since I live near Chicago and was born in 85 :).
That is bad. Its kindergarten level. Come on kids, lets sing a long a lotus
You can of course turn off the sound and watch that great car in wonderful silence.
Personally I always preferred Max Mosely’s version of Devo’s “Whip It”. Now that was one big hit.
I thought it was only big in Germany 🙂
I can’t believe that I have managed to avoid that for nearly 40 years. Got me in the end. Nice video accompaniment, took me back to those days at Brands.
Well shared
I actually thought that was much more musical than Joe pre-warned.
I did laugh how the end turns into a bit of “naaa naaa naa nayyy”- we’re the champions though
I could see a modern marketing dept for Red Bull or Lotus recreating something like that as a piss take – and getting great results for the irony.
Oh please, spare us the pain…
Paul,
no,
you get it all wrong, it has to be serious and sincere, here’s how:
First you get thoroughly baked, arguing scribbled ideas,
. . . and spend a few days to work on the lyrics, composition, harmony
(possibly schedule a day or two’s downtime for feuding and finding missing persons who went for a takeaway and the second crew you sent to find the first or plain just get food, since you are gasping)
Then get baked again. And talk utter crap to the producer / engineers how you expect them to make you sound like . . this is usually a whole other step, but for first timers, treat it as ongoing
Then drink insensible amounts of brews, if not already at that optimum peak of impromptu good voice, and record, unrehearsed.
(repeat above steps in loop, as required. Depending on your professional music experience, you may need to stop after fewer iterations.)
It doesn’t work any other way. Trust me, mates of mine were recording and promoting things as bad and worse than that. (though strangely, they did chart) I reckon there should be mandatory, ahem, recreational testing for some teams. Especially the teams who are in a right mess (HuRT, looking at you) could do with some spl . . I mean team building exercises. It should be Fun, not Formula One. Ease the pain. When things are silly, get silly, save your sanity for later. I really reckon it’s all way too up tight these days.
Now Joe, I’d have though you’d have known the rules by now. I sincerely hope you have written permission, signed by a lawyer, to make an oblique and humorous reference to a thirty year old team bearing the name Lotus, painted black and gold and use their image. I expect a stiff response from Hethel, distancing themselves from this bad singing.
Of COURSE – that’s why they’ve been signing rappers and artists, in case they need to bring out a single in the event of winning the world championship. Doh! Stupid us.
Epic. Thanks for the laugh.
Shades of “The Italian Job” in the Lotus song?
I can just hear the conversation in the studio now – “Lads I’ve got a great idea! Why don’t we add a banjo in there …”
Clearly instead of wasting the High Court’s time, Bahar and TF should have had a sing-off, X Factor style…
I still have the original 7 inch vinyl single upstairs in the loft. And on the “flip side” is a really terrible song called “Working al’nighter”. Is that a record?
Saddo!
Yep, me too. I bought it a jumble sale for 5p in the 70’s. In my defence I was less than 10 years old!!
I went to a Classic Racing Car show at Stoneleigh a few years ago, and Classic Team Lotus were selling them there too.
They should have left off the singing and the music and just recorded the sounds of the engine! That would have been fantastic!
Replacing the awful singing with Raikonen’s voice would be epic.
Hicks was on to something…
Hey jim,
thanks man, yeah, do we ever get it in the neck!
Today in the Daily Mail there was a quote from “Mr Bird, an advertising worker from Maidstone”.
Advertising *worker*?
Not putting it too finely, what other socially unacceptable professions are called faux – politely being a ” —— worker”?
With a nod to Bill Hicks, I shall just get my cards printed “JoJ, ADWHORE” and be done with it 🙂
My first boss would say he worked in telesales before he’d say he worked in advertising. Okay, you’d say you were in publishing if it was a girl, but I still wear a kind of inverse pride.
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Love Bill Hicks, though. A tonic to watch him still, may he in spirit never stop raving against all the BS in the world.
When it comes to these team songs, though, wouldn’t the better clip be Hicks going on how scraping Ringo off the ceiling, or “manadatory marijuana”?
anyhow, there seems to be a lot of interest suddenly in the 70s. This piece is about a BBC Docu soon to be broadcast:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2138825/And-today-children-Play-Schools-going-pot-Presenters-stoned-minds-reveals-Johnny-Ball.html
Since I can’t do it over for a double check, it’s just a guess, but I reckon growing up when all the grown-ups were a bunch of (baked) sillies was a wonderful way to grow up. I remember my dad watching telly with me in awe at the sheer inventiveness and stupidity of it all. He’d remind me the world is not quite like that, but praised it as “harmless fun”. And it was. But take a look at children’s telly since, and all the “youth issues” that got foisted on formative minds. Did that start with “Grange Hill”? Whatever, I think that sort of rot served only to undermine positivity in life.
I’m just fearful there’s a revisionist kick in all the nostalgia, somehow to tell us that all the moralistic crap that washed over youth since then is excusable, when the only way I see it is that all that all too “what is good for you” patronising f-d up generations since, leading us not to a sneaky bifter at a party, but harder and harder chemical rot.
cheers anyhow, jim, for the always useful reminder, how the world sees my profession! All best, – j
p.s. yeah, “Mad Men” is a truly fine attempt to redress the balance, but that’s not meant to make it better for people like me, that’s so they can prime the market to suck up retro – nostalgic campaigns. These things (“PanAm” as well, there’s many more if you stretch the criteria) are all very carefully done.
Bill Hicks, absolute legend.
He used to call the USA, the United States of Advertising. Check out his thoughts on Jay Leno too..
Ouch, sadly Bill Hicks passed about the last time I thought watching late night TV was worth it. But, oooh, yup, him on Leno is very funny. Does Leno get a get out of jail pass for being such a petrol head, though? It’s odd I love Hicks so much, and yet am a product of just what he righteously kicked the ass off. Double respect, then, from me.
Maybe those in charge smoked their own gear. I mean, maybe the advertising of the generations who have been in charge inured them just the wrong way? In which case, I was incredibly lucky, very late child of a man born in 1907, adman then banker, who had seen plenty serious tough times. (extra lucky, times ten, that he stuck around on this planet a good while, too) But unlucky, as in because he took the bother to teach me how things work, or at least the hypocrisy of it all, that I could never suck up to the mainstream, could never trust my own generation or their parents, and neither as a result could I work up my own natural rebellious take on it.
I am in fact talking about advertising. But I think worse was done by others. That’s not mitigation, just a comparison. The link just up, is not so much an eye opener to me, as a shock, or maybe ice-cube down the spine on a hot day, satisfying but disturbing same time. You see Jim Grant is one of the most respected analysts anywhere*. He has carved out a unparalleled reputation for cool head and quiet thinking and respectful talk. And yet here he is, saying things heretical to the the powers that be, in other words, niting the hand which might feed him:
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/jim-grant-federal-reserve-vampire-squid-vampire-squids
I quote “Wall to wall manipulation by our friends in Washington”
It’s also good for a look back at the 70s.
I am sure advertising needs to take some blame. Despite I steer clear of the mainstream that people blame for messing with public minds, I take it on the chin, I’ll take blame. It’s what drives me to do something better.
* you do not get that many subs for a three grand a year short plain sheet newsletter otherwise, unless you are a absolute con man. Grant is no con man, just read any of the samples he puts up, to see there’s none of your shrill in him.
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Sorry Joe, for continuously passing on links to that site, which I am rather fed up of (yet still it grabs great data, in between the shouting and screaming) I just cannot find the direct link of the interview on Bloomberg. You’d rather be seen dead, but if you look at ZH’s pitch and the ads they carry, boy do they have the shh stirring down pat. My pal sold his online ad trading company, but is silenced by a impending IPO. When done, I might yet be privy to some interesting dope on how that market is tricked up. Only can one reverse it to play it straight? I am less sure. Ugh, well, like in poker, no money for the straight – dies, as usual . . .
Joe , seeing Colin’s hat in that Lotus vid , I was reminded of it being placed in the “Break glass in case of win” box in the pits .
I can’t remember if it was Tony or Dany that had it , but is it still there , waiting to be tossed in the air with a win ?
Tony had it. I have no idea what happened to it. Perhaps someone from Caterham F1 Team can tell us?
It’s good of you to remind us of these Blasts from the Past.
I think Michael Schumacher could render Bach’s “Ich habe genug” with touching pathos.
Along the same line…
Surely Lotus Renault are missing a wonderful opportunity.
Instead of throwing money away on lolly-ices for sweaty journalist, they could make a killing by simply giving Kimi a bottle of vodka, a live karioke mike, and prompting him with Sid Vicious’ touching rendition of that little heard serenade, “My Way”.
Sure to be a Christmas number One in Finland.
PS. Joe: Let’s have more of your memories from the neural archive.
How about some of your Warr memoirs… as in Peter…?
How would he and Kimi got along?
Someone, somewhere, must have a tape of Kimi crooning. I mean, given the statistical data of his partying, there simply has to be a chance such a tape already exists. Was it found by someone with connexions to Rally and NASCAR??
cheesylicious!
2 mins 8 seconds is me aged 4 years old. Dad looked cool but couldn’t sing for his supper. Great car, Great footage. Great times
Thanks for posting, wondered who the lucky lad was. Great indeed. A decade hence cars of that era will still have more draw than the current crop.
The guy captured Rubens perfectly!
Joe – any ideas what Colin Chapman thought of this, as they refer to him as Chunky? I thought he hated that nickname 🙂
Truly terrible words and music – should be up for an award!
some of that footage is historically incorrect. there’s some shots from ’73
Quite magnificently awful, so bad its almost good. Great to see the footage of Ronnie Peterson and seeing an F1 car around Brands. A resounding mistake by an F1 team on a par with Force India winning £20k that only cost them £1m. There must be similar almighty goofs when egos collide with common sense. BRM’s H16 motor, EJ trying to sue Vodafone etc.,
Lotus 72. D. JPS livery. Gold wheels. Emmo at the wheel. #1 on the nose.
It doesn’t get any better than this. The definitive version of the best looking F1 car of all time.
Thank you Joe. Before watching Toleman destroy the F2 field in ’80 and promise myself I’d follow them if they ever made the jump to F1, this takes me back to my first time round watching F1, when I was about the same age as the kid on the screen. What’s not to love?
Yes, I turned the sound off after a bit.
Wow could have been a shave blade company! Thanks for sharing that Joe. Since we are looking at a superb and beautiful 72 model in the vid, could you or any reader please suggest how much faster lap times are in general compared to any earlier years just of interest and where the speed mostly comes from. Yah I know I could research it but I suspect you or a reader will have a quick more accurate view. More powerful engines from the past on their own of course did not alone produce faster lap times. Question: was straight line speed ever much faster? And tracks have chicanes and safety changes that make it tough to compare direct lap times but any guesses? Straight line speed was still very high back then – how much has been gained in the corners and overall thoughts just curious. I see track records standing from the mid 2000’s. Cheers and thanks. Just for kicks no comment on staff singing in a commercial – here is a laugh from the seventies in North America: LOL same time as Lotus.
I’m thrilled to finally see someone apart from me actually use one of my favorite words, “inanity.”
When I first saw the JPS Lotus vinyl record advertised back in the day, I didn’t bite (or buy), but as it involved a jam-session of possibly-soused Brits, I imagined it as a bar-songish ballad sounding like “A Mother’s Lament,” the tune caterwauled out by Eric Clapton and Cream at the end of their album “Disraeli Gears.” Splash cold water on that notion.
Hesketh Racing marketed some silly souvenir stuff too: that’d be worth another blogged reminiscence.
Funny that there is such an overlap between music and racing, drivers being artists and artists being drivers. Billy Cotton, Johhn Claes on one side and Elio De Angelis on the other this I venture to suggest was produced to order by tin pan alley. The best racing connected songs I have heard are by Mark Knoffler and Chris Rhea. but I bet there are more.