\t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\t Welsh pop star Bonnie Tyler, who passed away on July 8 at age 75, left behind a towering musical legacy. In Argentina, however, she will also be remembered for something she likely never imagined: her enduring popularity in Argentine football stadiums.<\/p>\n
Singing stadium chants is an essential part of the Argentine match-going experience. You\u2019re expected \u2014 and encouraged \u2014 to sing, ideally while jumping up and down.<\/p>\n
Argentines will often bring instruments \u2014 most notably drums and sometimes trumpets \u2014 to stadiums, but they seldom rely on original songwriting talent. As a general rule, they\u2019re adaptations of popular songs, hailing from a myriad of origins.<\/p>\n
The lyrics almost entirely changed to reflect either the team or the fan\u2019s glory \u2014 or how cowardly, ruinous or poor some rival is \u2014 but the rhyme and tempo remain unaltered.\u00a0<\/p>\n
While most clubs have their own songs, or versions of them, some are universal to Argentine football. Few feelings are as common among fans as the frustration over players not quite taking the match seriously enough. And that\u2019s how Bonnie Tyler\u2019s \u201cIt\u2019s a Heartache\u201d became a staple of Argentine stadiums.<\/p>\n
Written by Ronnie Scott and Steve Wolfe and released in November 1977, the song became one of Welsh singer Bonnie Tyler\u2019s biggest hits. It topped the charts in several countries and reached No. 3 in the U.S. and No. 4 in the UK, so it\u2019s no surprise that Argentines became acutely aware of its pace and rhythm.<\/p>\n
Yet in the stands, its original themes of futility and unrequited love were replaced by other, more mundane ones, like frustration and eagerness.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cHey players, you sons of b*tches, how about putting your heart to it, you\u2019re playing against nobodies,\u201d people sing at the top of their lungs, following the rhythm of the song\u2019s first verse. Nearly 40 years since the original song\u2019s release, the chant has become a classic of big teams when facing tough times.<\/p>\n
Despite hailing from a football-obsessed country like Britain, it\u2019s unlikely that Tyler ever heard about the Argentine \u201cremix\u201d of one of her biggest hits, and never spoke on the matter.<\/p>\n
However, she\u2019s far from the only international artist whose work has inspired Argentine football chants.<\/p>\n
Creedence Clearwater Revival won\u2019t tell you what it feels like As a stadium chant, a song can go through different stages and target audiences. Released in April 1969, Creedence Clearwater Revival\u2019s \u201cBad Moon Rising\u201d speaks of looming bad times as the world \u2014 and particularly the U.S. \u2014 entered the turbulent yet hopeful social climate of the late 60s.<\/p>\n
It was first picked up by San Lorenzo fans around the same time, as the club \u2014 one of Argentina\u2019s big five \u2014\u00a0 was fighting for its economic and sporting survival in the 2010s.<\/p>\n
Yet the song only became a universal anthem in 2014, when it was modified once again, this time to target Brazil ahead of that year\u2019s World Cup.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cBrazil, tell me how does it feel like, to have your daddy home,\u201d opens up the song. It then goes on to recall Argentina\u2019s 1990 World Cup victory the last time the two met on the biggest stage.<\/p>\n
It became ubiquitous at the 2014 World Cup, but has since been ridiculed by Brazilians in the aftermath of Argentina\u2019s loss to Germany in the tournament\u2019s final.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Many Argentines would rather forget it, but a couple of clubs have brought it back, most notably River Plate after their historic win in the 2018 Copa Libertadores final against derby rivals Boca Juniors.<\/p>\n
\u2018Bo\u2019 goes the world Some songs need big sweeping changes to turn them into stadium chants. Some chants have incredibly detailed lyrics that make it hard to follow or are very specific to one club. And then there\u2019s \u201cPop goes the world.\u201d<\/p>\n
Released in October 1987 by Canadian new wave and synth-pop band Men Without Hats, the song saw major success in Europe but never reached the top of the U.S. or U.K. charts.<\/p>\n
However, its incredibly catchy tune made it a great match for stadium chants across South America, and never more so than in Argentina, where it\u2019s sung not to the lyrics, but to the rhythm.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Fans have to be creative to fit their team\u2019s name into the tempo. Boca fans go \u201cDale Bo, dale, dale Bo,\u201d (Come on, Bo) while Independiente fans have to use their team\u2019s nickname, \u201cEl Rojo\u201d in order to make it fit. Classic rival Racing fans ditch the \u201cdale\u201d and instead shorten the nickname to sing \u201cLa Acad\u00e9, la Acad\u00e9, dale la Acad\u00e9,\u201d a short for \u201cLa Academia,\u201d the team\u2019s nickname.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a nearly universal tune across the country, so if you\u2019re visiting a stadium you\u2019ve never been to before, chances are you won\u2019t go wrong with this one.<\/p>\n
Oh la rivalit\u00e9 On the other end of the spectrum, you have songs that fit so well and so uniquely with a specific team or situation that it\u2019s very hard for fans of other teams to use them.<\/p>\n
Few better examples of this spring to mind than Rosario Central\u2019s fans\u2019 use of Erasure\u2019s 1986 hit \u201cOh l\u2019Amour.\u201d The third single from the English synth-pop duo\u2019s debut studio album Wonderland reached No. 3 in the U.S.<\/p>\n
Yet for Canalla fans, as Central\u2019s followers are known, it speaks not of unrequited love but of all the failings of their historic rivals Newell\u2019s Old Boys.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Rosario city derby is one of Argentine football\u2019s fiercest rivalries. The fact that both clubs have never been able to continuously compete with the bigger Buenos Aires sides has given the derby a massive importance, and scoring points in the stands is almost as important as doing so on the pitch.\u00a0<\/p>\n
While most of the song is fairly run-of-the-mill for football chants, the unique way in which the club\u2019s name fits within the title and opening verse, changed from \u201cOh l\u2019Amour\u201d to \u201cLlora Newell\u2019s\u201d (\u201cNewell\u2019s cries\u201d), makes it very hard for other clubs to piggyback on the Canalla\u2019s work. That way, it has remained exclusive to the blue-and-yellow half of Rosario, used to mock the other half of town.<\/p>\n
Cover image: Wikimedia Commons<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Welsh pop star Bonnie Tyler, who passed away on July 8 at age 75, left behind a towering musical legacy. In Argentina, however, she will also be remembered for something she likely never imagined: her enduring popularity in Argentine football stadiums. Singing stadium chants is an essential part of the Argentine match-going experience. You\u2019re expected […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":89749,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5868,22647,66,67],"tags":[22025,22992,1368,1369],"class_list":["post-89748","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-argentina-football","category-bonnie-tyler","category-football","category-sports","tag-argentina-football","tag-bonnie-tyler","tag-football","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89748","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=89748"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89748\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/89749"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=89748"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=89748"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=89748"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}