We’re still in World Cup mode here at TOTP Rewind. England have started their campaign off with a straightforward 2-0 win against Tunisia but its host nation France who look like the team to beat after winning their opening two games 3-0 and 4-0. In the singles chart, there was a much tighter duel with two football songs squaring up to duke it out for the No 1 slot but we’ll get to that.

Jayne Middlemiss is our host and we begin with Five who were fast establishing themselves as not just another here-today-gone-tomorrow boy band by notching up their third hit and biggest to this point with “Got The Feelin’”. However, after attempting to bend the perceived notion of what a 90s boy band should sound like on their first two singles which displayed their confident swagger and a funky backbone, their third effort seemed to resort to a more accepted pop sound as if they’d dumb themselves down. Yes, there’s some pretty slick rapping on it courtesy of J and Abz (I know there names because they’re on the back of the football shirts they’ve donned for this performance – topical lads) but the chanted “Nah na na na ner na na” chorus is especially weak and lowest common denominator. You could wave your hands in the air to it though (presumably like you just didn’t care) so maybe that was the whole point? As much as I thought this single was not up too much, their next release – the Joan Jett sampling “Everybody Wants Get Up” – was truly magnificent.

Jayne Middlemiss makes a reference to Glastonbury in her intro to the next act as they would be appearing at the upcoming festival that year. Twenty-seven years later they would be at Glastonbury again in the surprise special guest slot. We can only be talking of Pulp. In their 1998 Glastonbury appearance, they did play the song they are performing on this TOTP which was their latest single “A Little Soul”. Sadly, it didn’t make the cut in 2025. I say ‘sadly’ as I think it was a shame they didn’t perform this almost forgotten and pcertainly overlooked Pulp song. Now you could argue that this mid-paced, unspectacular tune was symptomatic of the commercial lull the band were experiencing that had been ushered in by the underperforming “This Is Hardcore” album. It sure was no “Common People” nor “Disco 2000” but why should it have been? In theory, any artist is entitled to write and record whatever style of song they wish to. Moreover, if Pulp had spent three years recording a follow up to “Different Class” that sounded exactly the same as its illustrious predecessor, surely they’d have been criticised for that as well?

“A Little Soul” is actually a beautifully crafted, wistful and considered song. Confirmation of its quality came in the form of an Ivor Novello nomination in the category of Best Song Musically and Lyrically. Written about growing up without his father who abandoned the Cocker family for Sydney when Jarvis was seven, the singer had nothing to do with him until he reached his thirties. I like the word play of the song’s title – a ‘little’ soul as in a small sized soul not a small amount of soul in its first usage but then the reverse at the song’s climax. It deserved better than its peak of No 22. Almost unbelievably, Pulp’s chart positions would be even smaller from here on in.

A truly infamous song next and I have statistical evidence to validate that claim. Des’ree would have the biggest hit of her life with the song…erm… “Life” but it was truly a double edged sword. Continuing the run of one sizeable hit from each of her studio albums – “Feel So High” from “Mind Adventures” in 1992 and “You Gotta Be” from 1994’s “I Ain’t Movin’” – “Life” was the most high profile track from 1998’s “Supernatural” album. A jaunty, upbeat track that was perfect for daytime radio and wisely released as the Summer was underway, it would debut at No 8 but then spend the next 10 weeks knocking around the Top 40 with some steadily consistent sales figures.

However, any commercial success or sonic merits are completely overshadowed by its lyrics and in particular this one:

“I don’t want to see a ghost, it’s a sight that I fear most

I’d rather have a piece of toast and watch the evening news”

Source: LyricFind
Songwriters: Des’ree Weekes / Prince Sampson
Life lyrics © Kobalt Music Publishing Ltd., Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC

Utterly ludicrous. What was she thinking?! Written by Des’ree alongside one Prince Sampson, did they not look at each other after writing those lines down and say “Are we sure about this?”. Maybe they did but then how did they come up with the answer “yes”? And this isn’t just my opinion. In the 2007, BBC 6 Music Taxing Lyrical poll, those lines were voted the worst pop lyrics ever. Ever. “Life” had some stiff competition as well. Second in the poll was Snap!’s “serious as cancer” line from “Rhythm Is A Dancer” whilst Duran Duran’s “you’re about as easy as a nuclear war” from “Is There Something I Should Know?” was also in the running. Despite such awful rivals, I don’t think you can look past the ‘ghost-toast’ rhyming couplet. Sheesh!

Now here’s a band whose name I recall but whose back catalogue I’m not sure I’ve ever heard. How is this possible when I worked in a record shop for pretty much the whole of the 90s? I was busy working! That’s my story and I’m sticking to it! It turns out though that I quite like Silver Sun. OK, this is based on listening to just one song and a song that isn’t even theirs but you have to start somewhere I guess. “Too Much, Too Little, Too Late” was originally a hit for Johnny Mathis and Deniece Williams in 1978 which had never made much of an impression on me but this indie rock version is much more arresting. Recorded initially as a B-side as a bit of a laugh, it became the lead song on a four track EP made up entirely of cover versions. I must have missed it back in 1998 (I was working remember!) as I am bit of a sucker for this sort of thing (see also The Carpenters’ “Yesterday Once More” as covered by Redd Kross). Sadly for Silver Sun, it would prove to be their biggest ever hit despite only just squeezing into the Top 20. That lack of chart success led to them being dropped by Polydor in 1999 though they would release a further five studio albums either on independent label Invisible Hands Music or by themselves so there’s plenty of back catalogue for me to dive into if I want to hear more of the band having now discovered them. Sadly though, Silver Sun called it quits permanently in 2020 after the death from cancer of lead singer James Broad.

Dearie me. I’m glad I’d forgotten about this one. Does anybody remember a third single from Ian Brown’s debut solo album “Unfinished Monkey Business”? Well, there was and it was called “Can’t See Me” but I wish that it had been a case of “I can’t hear you” as this was a right racket. What a miserable sound and miserable performance to match. I guess Brown had a lot in his mind what with an impending court case* over an accusation of air rage and all.

*Brown was found guilty in October 1998 of threatening behaviour towards an air stewardess and sentenced to four months in prison serving two.

Supposedly, the track was written about Brown seeing John Squire in the village of Hale, Greater Manchester and waving at him but not being acknowledged by his old Stone Roses band mate who hid behind a newspaper. A couple of things here. When I first moved to Manchester in 1990, I knew one other person who lived there – a guy called Ian who I’d been at Sunderland Polytechnic with. Ian told me a story of how he’d been for a night out in Hale and had gone into a wine bar and asked for a pint. The barman beckoned Ian to him and whispered in his ear so as not to embarrass him “Sir, we don’t sell pints here”. That’s how posh Hale is/was.

Secondly, the track’s origin story reminded me of another tale that the late, great Pete Garner once told me. Pete was the bass player for the Stone Roses from 1983 to 1987 whom I worked with at Our Price in the 90s and he relayed to me how in the band’s early days, they unexpectedly found themselves on the bill for a gig as a replacement for Adam Ant who pulled out at the last minute. It was seen as a big deal and opportunity for the band but there was one problem. They couldn’t find guitarist John Squire anywhere. Despite efforts by his band mates to locate him, he couldn’t be found and the Roses missed out on their slot for the gig. It turns out that Squire had taken himself off to sit in a field for a bit of self contemplation. Remember, this was well before the ubiquity of mobile phones and tracking devices. So when Squire avoided talking to Brown in Hale, it wasn’t the first time he hadn’t wanted to be found by his old school pal and fellow Roses member.

And so the football songs begin as we get three on the trot that all feature in the Top 5 starting with Dario G and “Carnaval De Paris”. Having appropriated the chant hook from the marvellous “Life In A Northern Town” by Dream Academy for debut hit “Sunchyme”, the dance group (yes, they were a group not an individual) turned their attention this time to a football terraces chant that originated in Holland, was adopted by Sheffield Wednesday fans and ended up as an international hit when released as a tie-in with the 1998 World Cup. And when I say ‘international’, I mean truly global as supposedly it features instruments associated with every one of the competing 32 nations in the tournament including bagpipes, accordion and steel drum. Despite that mix of influences, the track has a definite samba feel to my ears despite it being based around the old American folk ballad “Oh, My Darling Clementine”. It must have been used by broadcasters to soundtrack their football coverage at some point as well surely? The performance here with a cast of what feels like dozens but is probably no more than ten people is perhaps more suited to a stage musical than TOTP and what was the deal with the bagpipe player who’s been made up to look like a rejected extra from a Mad Max movie?

After the undercard of Dario G come the two football song heavyweights battling to be No 1 on the chart starting with Fat Les and “Vindaloo”. This was just bonkers or was it, in fact, genius? You’ll have your own opinion but the truth of the matter is that this completely unofficial single was bigger both commercially and culturally than the FA sanctioned release by England United. The product of a drinking session at the Groucho Club by Blur’s Alex James and actor, comedian and broadcaster Keith Allen, it was written to parody football chants but became, if not one sung on the terraces, a mantra for the watching millions in the pubs and bars of England. In parts absurd (“Me and me Mum and me Dad and me Gran, we’re off to Waterloo”), in parts social commentary on our national identity (“We all love vindaloo”), it’s a riot of noise, nonsense and nah nah nahs. ‘Riot’ sound like the right word to describe this performance as well which takes the “Bitter Sweet Symphony” parodying video and transports it to the set of EastEnders before winding its way into the TOTP studio with a cast of characters that seemingly redefine the meaning of the word ‘random’. What was with the Max Wall lookalike, the sumo wrestlers and the French maid? Am I missing something? Was this surreptitious irony at play? One thing I do have an answer to is that censored caption. Here’s @TOTPFacts with the explanation:

OK then. I think the sumo wrestlers might have caused more offence. Apparently, Keith Allen earns at least £20,000 a year from his football related hits (he co-wrote the New Order 1990 No 1 “World In Motion” remember) which is not to be sniffed at and is another marker as to the impact of “Vindaloo”. I can’t imagine “(How Does It Feel To Be) On Top Of The World” turns over such a healthy return.

Emerging triumphant from the clash of the football song titans was “3 Lions ‘98” by Baddiel, Skinner and the Lightning Seeds. An update of the song from two years prior, there are a number of differences between the two versions. In its first incarnation, it had been the official song of the England football team for the Euro ‘96 tournament as endorsed by the FA. When the 1998 World Cup came round, David Baddiel and Frank Skinner suggested they be the official song again but the FA went with the England United track instead. Yeah, that decision looks ridiculous in retrospect with the FA’s choice being hammered sales wise by not just one but two unofficial songs. Secondly, as this was an update of and not just a rerelease of the original 1996 No 1, “3 Lions ‘98” included brand new lyrics which mainly focused on that Euros ‘96 tournament and England’s semi-final defeat heartache and the team’s subsequent qualification for the ‘98 World Cup. Baddiel and Skinner were clearly as caught off guard as the rest of us by the omission of Paul Gascoigne from the squad as Gazza is mentioned in the lyrics that were written before Glenn Hoddle announced his selections for the tournament. (see also Stuart ‘Psycho’ Pearce). Finally, and this is pedantic but jarring, why did they rename it “3 Lions ‘98” and not “Three Lions ‘98”?

Disclaimer

I make no claim to the rights of this show and all ownership and contents including logos and graphics belongs totally to the BBC or copyright holder(s).

All opinions on the music and artists featured are my own. Sorry if you don’t agree.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m002jmlp/top-of-the-pops-19061998?seriesId=unsliced