Meltdown expected
I don't know if you'd picked up on this, but the Olympics are going to be held in London in 2012. As part of the "handover" today they threw a "party" in front of Buckingham Palace. (If you look at the branding it's a "Visa Party", so it's nice to know that it's an advert for a credit card company too.) Some bands and singers are coming on to do one or two songs, which, according to host Claudia Winkelman, are on the theme of sport and winning - hence, We Are The Champions by the cast of We Will Rock You to open, followed by a tremulous Sophie Ellis Bextor doing Nobody Does It Better. I understand. I don't want to get involved but I understand.Tragically, I turned on Radio 2 in the car and heard third on the bill, Scouting For Girls, who have to be the worst of the hollow new indie bands by a country mile. They bashed through their big hit, the truly gormless She's So Lovely, and I managed not to deliberately crash the car. Then ...
The man who either sings for Scouting For Girls or wandered onto the stage from a nearby Student Union bar and thought he might as well pick up the mic announced that they were going to play that well-known sporting/winning song, London Calling. [a pause while you take that in.] Needless to day, Scouting For Girls proceeded to murder what is one of the greatest rock songs of all time, removing every ounce of its fury and macabre poetry and urban paranoia and turning it into a singalong party anthem. (Sorry, a singalong Visa party anthem.) Except that nobody sang along because they were either a) unfamiliar with the song, b) too young to have ever heard it, or c) embarrassed. I saw the whole thing on TV when I got back, and it was even worse in vision than it had been on the radio. The massed holidaymakers having a nice day out were all waving flags, some of the Olympics ones, others Union Jacks, like it was the Jubilee, and they were doing so to a Clash song about a nuclear attack on London (clues in the lyrics: "the ice age is coming, the sun's zooming in, meltdown expected, the wheat is growing thin etc.). On the screens behind the band, touristy images of the London Underground logo, Big Ben and the London Eye flashed past. No mushrooms clouds, or thin wheat, oddly.
I honestly don't think I have witnessed anything more cringe-making and tragic in all my life. The man from the Student Union bar even changed some of the words. Instead of singing the line, "I have no fear, 'cos London is drowning and I live by the river," he carefully removed the potential downer, "drowning", and sang, "London is calling and I have no fear." Very clever. And worse, the man from the Student Union even had a go at giving the song an Olympic twist. Instead of singing:
London calling, see we ain't got no highs
Except for that one with the yellowy eyes
He sang [wait for it] ...
London calling, see we ain't got no highs
Except for that one with the 19 gold eyes
Yes, ladies and gentlemen, the 19 gold eyes. Because Team GB won 19 gold medals at the Olympics. He'd removed the unsavoury reference to "yellowy" eyes and replaced with one about something or someone with 19 eyes. Luckily, not a single person in the audience heard his reference to our sporting heroes due to his unprofessional microphone technique and poor singing style.
1. Did the organisers not check the lyrics of London Calling before OK-ing it? (Don't tell me at a militarily-organised event like this that the band just decided to sing it on the spur of the moment.)
2. Are Scouting For Girls really so witless as to think singing a song about a nuclear attack on London would be appropriate for what is a celebration of London ideally not being attacked? (Were they trying to be punk rock and dangerous? If so, then why change the words?)
3. Did Joe Strummer die so that thousands of flag-waving tourists could wave them to one of his finest songs?
When this fucking fiasco arrives on the iPlayer (it's ongoing as I type), please go and watch it, and remember it when we all actually arrive in hell in a handcart.
And you don't have to, as I have made these evocative grabs of the day the music actually died:
Altogether now: "The wheat is growing thin . . . "
posted by Andrew Collins @ 4:34 PM
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Sport and music make VERY uneasy bed fellows.
I think The Pidgeon Detectives may just edge them in awfulness.
The handover in China was... it was ok. It wasn't bad. But they've made it clear that it's London's games, and sod the rest of the country, because they want to showcase the new red buses.
Andrew, if you actually searched for the hero inside yourself, you'd be smiling and waving a flag too. Heather Small and Sebastian Coe are praying for you.
Anna
I had the telly on the other room while this farcical concert was on. From my seat next door, I could make out badly sung Queen songs, but I didn't even recognise Scouting for Girls' attempt to cover London Calling. And I have been a Clash fan for 30 years (greatest band ever, rah rah rah ad nauseam)...
Mission definitely not accomplished.
As soon as they went from Beijing back to London I switched the damn television off.
The closing ceremony had been great until the bloody London bus appeared and the dancers with umbrellas.
That's when the tanks should have rolled in.
Boris was brilliant taking the flag though.
I'm too out of touch to realise it was scouting for girls but it was clearly awful. In fact I had only just finished Charlie Brooker's review of China's opening ceremony and just how poorly London might fare. To quote:
"How the hell are we going to top a display like that? Our plans currently consist of six roman candles, Bernie Clifton riding his ostrich, and some Britain's Got Talent prick-a-ma-boob beatboxing on a trampoline. It would be less shameful if we all marched into the arena one by one, dropped our trousers, yanked our bumcheeks apart and let the entire globe gaze right up our apertures for an hour, while the Kaiser Chiefs perform their latest single in the background"
Pretty prescient apart from the Kaiser Chiefs.
Looking forward to seeing Bernie Clifton again though.
I love Scouting For Automatic Pigeon Hoosiers. I bought their album and I play it when I put a frozen pizza in the oven. Thin and crispy? More like grin and wispy [note to self: this pun needs a bit of work].
Anyway, I have never heard of 'The Clash' before today so decided to look them up on YouTube. And what an unholy racket they made. And the state of them! I know bands like to be 'edgy' and 'iconoclasts' but I think they'd get their point across a lot quicker if they a) enunciated properly and b) ran a comb through their hair.
I think the so-called Clash could learn a thing or two from bands like these. I didn't see any grinning babies and tearful old ladies at a Clash concert. I just saw a load of young people who should know better jumping around to a terrible old din.
Where are The Clash today? Not having chart hits like Scouting For Pigeons, that's where. So think on, Mick Strummer 'and co'.
With kind regards,
Dr. Crawdaddy
Presumably an identikit re-run of Leni Reifenstahl is too much but the swooping carefully setup camera angles incorporating the Victory statue, Lions, Buck House, and the swirling red white and blue presenters stage and the U Jack backdrop to the ersatz Queen anthems was some sort of elaborate and private joke ... or maybe not.
Has anyone done a word count on the use of "pride", "proud".
Panem et circenses
Oh - and as you mentioned the iplayer - have you noticed that when you watch stuff online, you can turn it up to 11? Got to love the beeb geeks for that.
Anna
I don't know about you, but I was delighted to see Myleene Klass make an appearance. It's been, ooh, hours since she last graced our television screens and I was beginning to worry.
The look on Winkleman's boat race after Bradley Wiggins made that ill-advised comment about Joey Barton was one moment amongst many that caused my hand to form the shape of a claw, in a programme which seemed at times to be little more than a BBC advertorial (c.f. the interview with one bloke in the crowd who spoke of listening to the games on Five Live).
These people really have no idea of the true nature of these songs do they? It's like David Cameron saying he was fond of Eton Rifles... I managed to watch the Chinese closing ceremony, even to the point of seeing David Beckham kicking a ball from an exploded Transformers bus. Couldn't someone have told Boris to button his jacket up and stop shoving his hands in his jacket pockets? How embarrassing was he? But when it went over to Trafalgar Square I had to switch off as those sort of events bring me out in a cold sweat. Having just read your post Andrew, I will be giving the iPlayer a wide birth for 7 days in case I accidentally hit the wrong button. I whole heartedly concur with your comments about Scouting for Girls. Everything from their crass name to their wimpy, lacklustre, vacuous songs. That 'She's so lovely' track is truly one of my most currently hated songs. The Brotherhood of Man for the Noughties.
Why didn't they just sing Noel Coward's London Pride and have done with it?
Holy shit! That was truly fucking wretched! The scene with the London bus during the closing ceremony had me sitting, mouth gaping, staring at the screen. It was like something out of an Austin Powers film. What the he'll was Jimmy Page thinking? He should be truly ashamed. Bonham will be spinning in his fucking grave.
Hazel Irvine made a cracking suggestion whilst commentating that perhaps instead of using the beautiful, glittering dancers like the Chinese did during the closing ceremony, London should consider having thousands of pearly kings and queens parading around. Sounds about right! Fuck me, I'm getting embarrassed already just thinking about 2012!!
Deep breaths. Deep breaths.
I hate Scouting For Girls. Actually HATE them. Why are they inflicting us with this shit? Why do none of their fans realise that all of their songs have an identical tune? As for their lyrics, they are far more offensive to me than even the most misogynistic rap. They need to go far far away from my tv and radio and take The Feeling and The Hoosiers with them too.
Zoe
Nice. Reminds me of a string quartet playing "Yesterday" at a friend's wedding. I don't think they put much thought into the sentiment.
It's almost as good as when 'they' thought it'd be a good idea to have a mass, country-wide sing-along to Lou Reed's Perfect Day - a song about heroin, unless I'm very much mistaken - after that BBC Music Day thingy in the late nineties.
Members of Townswomen's Guilds, Darby and Joan Clubs, Methodist Youth Groupps and YFC's up and down the country singing about smack is something that will live with me forever.
Music Day never really caught on.
Is there something rather odd at play here again. This "Team GB" Olympic thing. It's beginning to smack of the whole Diana thing and, more recently, "Cool Britannia" where the nations collective psyche goes all haywire and mentalist. Thank fuck no-one here is contributing to the nations collective psyche. They can stick it up their collective arse as far as I'm concerned.
Reminds me of the time REM's Orange Crush, a song about Nepalm, was introduced on TOTP (by Mark Goodier, possibly) with something along the lines "Mmmmm, yummy, Orange Crush, I'm parched..."
Best suggestion I've heard for the 2012 Opening Ceremony: when the athletes parade in under their flags, someone comes in from the other side of the stadium carrying something from the British Museum that we nicked from their country in the past...
Frankly, I couldn't care less about the Visa Party - all the performers there today will be stacking shelves at Tesco in 2012, so it doesn't really matter.
Did anyone else hear the comedy show on radio 2 saturday lunchtime where they ripped the piss out of Heather Small. Adopts throaty "soul" voice ..."Whaat huv yuh duhn tday t'make youhself praahhoowd"
I went for a walk along the cliffs, it was really refreshing.
I quite liked the Bus, the way it opened up Transformers style appealed to geeky bloke in me!
Also enjoyed the 8(?) year-old girl walking over the backs of the dancers. It must have symbolised the way everything Britain is being dumbed down just for children.
Ian
Seems entirely apt to me. A band for people who don’t like or understand music and an event for people who don’t like or understand sport.
Thank you for suffering through this so I didn't have to!
Wounldn't have been a tad more British to have the old transforma-bus do it's thing to the legendary "Thunderbirds" march by Barry Gray?
Heck I would have stood up and saluted that one.
Have to agree about Scouting for fun a profit. If ever there was a time to shout out "Play Freebird"....
yes, Scouting for Girls were shit, and their Clash cover had me cringing. I didn't much care for Leona Lewis either. Maybe it's possible to take these things too seriously though. I'm quite looking forward to 2012, on the whole, although I'm expecting a whole shitpile of criticism and doom-mongering before then. How about we all just ignore the ultimately ephemeral visa party, eh? It really doesn't amount to a whole hill of beans, and there's really no need to get so indignant about the silly little bands at the party, eh? It's only a song. It's not like they were pissing on Joe's grave, is it? I thought it was funny, to be honest.
I thought Jimmy Page was (sweaty but) ace, and I liked the umbrellas and the gold medal winning cyclists as commuters. It was a breath of fresh air after all that synchronised and mildly alarming chinese precision, and I hope a harbinger of the London games as a whole.
It'll be great if we give it a chance to be.
ST
Someone already referenced Charlie Brooker's comment on the Olympic Ceremony re:
How the hell are we going to top a display like that?
I won't be surprised if we create a dance troupe from asylum seekers to commemorate the occasion.
Lets face it - they had Zhang Yimou (of hero and house of flying daggers) choreograph it all. Do we have anyone that could embrace our culture in a tasteful way and choreograph that effectively?
machine levine
I managed to miss the Olympics in its entirety, thank God.
I hope our opening ceremony is completely and utterly embrassing - sort of like an extended You've Been Framed. Then we can give the world something to laugh at. Let's face it, whose respect for the Chinese has grown since they saw that flashy, faked, nouveau riche opening ceremony?
The world would be grateful if it could, in a rare moment of unity, watch a bunch of Boris-style halfwit-buffoons mucking about and getting fireworks stuck down their trousers.
Let's give the world what it wants in 2012 - those pompous English making complete and utter arses of themselves.
As for Scouting For Girls - how did they get big? Clearly they read The Script.
It's nice to know there are people out there who have realised that Scouting for Girls AREN'T amazing. I was beginning to wonder if I was just missing something. "I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, how we'll make it through this" - make it through what? what's the problem? Ohhhhh, is that the angst bit of your song? Good work, you nearly forgot to put it in didn't you, and then all the cool kids wouldn't have been able to 'relate'.
Back to the olympics though, why are we so proud that we had to spend millions of pounds to win a few medals in cycling? I think the olympics are fine, and I'm in awe of the athletes, but why are we buying all these medals? Have we really got all this money just lying around? What are we going to do with all these medals now?
I did get badly exposed to The Script this morning on my drive in to work. I took it on the chin and it was every bit as piss-poor as reported. Definite echoes of The-fucking-Edge running through the guitar work. I love this state but truly they don't do rock music well at all. I did hear U2's "How To Dismantle A Nuclear Bomb" the other day and , annoyingly, quite liked it. I've been listening to Steve Reich counterpoints ever since to punish my ears.
If this is what it's like now who, I wonder, will be at the opening ceremony in 2012? Probably the winner of a reality TV show in which the winner's prize is to perform at the opening ceremony of the 2012 Olympics. Just wait and see.
James Bond: Die Another Day also used it for when the characters came back to London.
Someone needs to write an anthemic song about London tout suite to stop disasters like this happening again.
I caught a few seconds of the London party by accident,while channel-hopping.
Heather - feckin'- Small. Again. Depressingly inevitable. I actually shrugged, as it was entirely what I expected...
Alas, the BBC won't let me watch iplayer in Ireland so I was spared! However, the thought of a mediocre indie band defiling one of my favourite songs is getting me all worked up! How is it a 'well known sporting/winning' song?!! We really need a new musical revolution to get rid of all these new indie bands! Playing in front of the palace?! my God! (I'll have to go lie down!!)
Posting this here, as I am afraid of spoilers in the Wire blogs.
A passage from today's Mediawatch in Football365 - you may find this amusing / horrifying...
Hats off to The Sun, who attempted to lighten all our days on Saturday with a gallery of 'the sexiest stunners who brought beauty to the track and field' in Beijing.
Included in the slideshow was one Haley Ishimatsu, an American diver born on September 10, 1992.
As an aside, here's a quick extract from The Sun's thundering columnist John Gaunt's piece published by the paper on Friday:
'I really enjoyed Gary Glitter's world tour of airports and the fact the foul pervert finally had to realise there was no place to run and no place to hide.'
So there you have it. It's not OK to perve at children, unless they're really fit, innit.
Slightly off the point, but I'm embarrassed to admit that until I read this, I always thought Joe was singing "the weekend's growing thin".
Yes, I know it doesn't make sense, but that's what I heard. I suppose you don't expect to find words like 'wheat' in punk rock songs, so my brain adjusted it to something more common.
'London Calling': I am embarrassed to say that I always thought the line was (admittedly somewhat mystifyingly) 'The Wheaties growing thin' - probably (I thought) a reference to breakfast cereal. Still one of my favourite songs.
Mark Radcliffe was told about SFG's dismal efforts on his show last night, and was audibly horrified. The news prompted a flood of suggestions for the most rotten cover version - but isn't almost every cover version by definition rubbish? I only ask.
I fear that a committee of politicians and civil servants, with their eyes on the youf vote, will decide the contents of the 2012 opening ceremony. I'm off to write to our Tess to urge her to be as elitist, obscure and magical as possible.
Andrew, I won't even bother going to the iplayer to see any of this because you've clearly imagined the whole thing. It could not actually have happened. Have you ever thought of writing for television?!
Indeed, what next? Michael Stipe appearing on the One Show discussing butterflies?
By the time 2012 comes around our economy will be so depressed Boris will have probably sold London Bridge to the Chinese as scrap in order to fund another pointless opening ceremony.
The Michael Stipe One Show appearance was glorious.
Far from turning in his grave, I reckon Joe would have just given a sardonic laugh at this farcical charade. Can just imagine the follow-up with 'Guns of Brixton': "You see, he feels like Boris/born under the Eton sun/his game is called winning/at the end of the day we've won".
Tom
Obviously only you can only appreciate The Clash. You're getting old boy.
Your printscreens of the debacle capture the pain beautifully.
But perhaps some slight sympathy for SFG though, they may face a 'Bernard Levin' or two, or even a 'Theatre of Blood' by irate Clash obsessives? One can but dream.
I hear they're gonna do Albatross by PIL for 2012.
Where will it all end... next they will take something sublime by Beethoven put terrible crass new words to it and pass it off as the EU anthem!
Andrew ,
this is why I love your writing . You do seem to articulate my exact same thoughts . SFG are a dreadful "band" and surely should be sent for trial for crimes against humanity .
I always enjoy the miss use of songs , like Every Breath You Take at weddings , the Perfect day adoption by the BBC made me laugh for months....
I hope against hope that 2012 will work and we will reel it in a bit and do something subtle and with class , but i doubt it .
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