Elbow's My Sad Captains may be a metaphor for our sporting summer
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Version 0 of 1. The morning after England's World Cup letdown, I was labouring on the cross-trainer at the local gym, listening to my iPod while watching Sky Sports News and BBC News 24 on two of the many TVs dotted around. As the England captain Steven Gerrard appeared on one screen to bemoan what might have been in the Group D opener against Italy, Elbow's latest album, The Take Off And Landing Of Everything had reached the track My Sad Captains. The timing was exquisitely appropriate. Gerrard was followed by a clip on England's second rugby Test in New Zealand where the captain Chris Robshaw was left to rue another heroic failure. Then it was the turn of the England cricket captain who was filmed losing his wicket cheaply for the second time in the first Test against Sri Lanka at Lord's. I'd so enjoyed the Elbow track - Guy Garvey delivers his anthems beautifully with a voice of northern velvet - that I repeated it after its six-minute duration in time to see the England hockey captain Barry Middleton being interviewed and lamenting the loss of a World Cup bronze medal. And the words of the refrain of My Sad Captains were reprised... "Another sunrise with my sad captains/With who I choose to lose my mind/And if it's all we only pass this way but once/What a perfect waste of time." The song, according to Garvey in a recent Observer interview, is a wistful paean to his hedonistic days but his reference to a "perfect waste of time" could be a metaphor for our sporting summer, or for sport itself, some cynics might say. For those of us who make a living out of this magnificent triviality, it is far more important than mere frippery. Sport's emotional pull gains strength and synchronicity when put to music. One can picture now the TV production assistants and archivists gathering images for their musical mosaics - will it be a requiem to cruel underachievement or a celebration of unexpected glory? They should be imaginative enough to avoid the predictable such as Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now or The Carnival Is Over – and the irritatingly familiar We Are The Champions or Simply The Best. Perhaps a World Cup deserves world music. Garvey's song opens with the line "I'm running out of miracles." Steven Gerrard will not be the only one humming the tune during this World Cup. He will have the company of 30 more captains, Portugal's Cristiano Ronaldo and Spain's Iker Casillas possibly among them, in various states of mortification. A song, like a picture, can tell a thousand stories. Elbow's First Steps was used to embellish the BBC's 2012 Olympics coverage; and I suspect someone at the Beeb or ITV already has My Sad Captains reserved for the moment of optimum impact. It will soon be time for another musical montage. But please let there be some Elbow room. What song/lyrics would you choose to accompany a particular sporting moment or sequence of moments? Let us know in the comments below |