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Waka Waka! The Ultimate World Cup Song Guide

In olden times, the World Cup and pop music kept to their respective sides of the cultural playing field. Not anymore. The Greatest Show on Earth™ has long been deemed incomplete without a raft of pan-global, world-uniting themes, a full set of inspirational team anthems and countless less-than-official supporting efforts by professional and nonprofessional musicians alike. We bravely ventured into this sporting-musical wasteland to bring you the definitive guide to producing a World Cup anthem. Note: It doesn't involve vuvuzelas.
'Far Away in America,' Germany and the Village People
Germany's Official Song, USA 1994
Who said Germans have no sense of humour? In '94, the reigning world champs were a byword for dour efficiency. So the obvious choice for their US campaign was to don their shiniest shell suits and hook up with disco's campest quintet, continuing a Teutonic World Cup tradition of ill-advised musical tributes to their hosts. "It's a land so great and wide/Touching you deep inside," the Village People actually sing.

Ranking: Group stage knockout
'Anthem,' Vangelis
Theme Song, South Korea/Japan 2002
The first World Cup of the new millennium, the first held in the postmodern metropolises of Eastern Asia. What futuristic masterpiece would Vangelis -- a man most famous for his hauntingly dystopian 'Blade Runner' soundtrack -- come up with? Four minutes of perky, uptempo, circa 1993 Euro-dance, that's what.

Ranking: Group stage knockout
'Shout for England,' Dizzee Rascal and James Corden
England's Unofficial Song, South Africa 2010
In this remake of Tears for Fears' whiny mid-'80s protest tune, Dizzee raps enthusiastically enough until being interrupted by the 'Gavin and Stacey' star, who spots a working TV camera and muscles his way into the spotlight on the chorus for no discernible reason. Do "These are the things I could do without" include a first-choice goalkeeper and a decent second striker?

Ranking: Scraping through to the knockout rounds on goal difference
'Re-Sepp-ten (Vi er røde, vi er hvide),' Denmark and Dodo Gad
Denmark's Official Song, Mexico 1986
The one-touch-passing, free-scoring 'Danish Dynamite' started out hot but never quite lived up to their billing. A bit like this tune, which opens with synthesized slap bass and squealing, cop-movie-theme guitar before devolving into the usual cacophony of shell-suited footballer caterwauling.

Ranking: A crushing 5-1 second round defeat
'Heading for the Top,' New Zealand and Ray Woolf
New Zealand's Official Song, Spain 1982
Looking like a low-rent Kiwi Abba member with his beard and v-neck sweater, crooner Ray Woolf leads the New Zealand squad in a sort of 'Sesame Street' self-help anthem about it being the taking part that counts. An accompanying video of randomly selected highlights includes quite a few goals scored against New Zealand by even tinier Pacific nations.

Ranking: A creditable last 16 berth
'Waka Waka (This Time for Africa),' Shakira, Featuring Freshlyground
Theme Song, South Africa 2010
Happy-clappy pan-ethnicism seems to be the blueprint for official tournament songs these days, and who better to embody that than Shakira, a woman who parlays Colombian-Lebanese heritage and Anglophone vocals into a multinational hitmaking machine. The lukewarm African flavours of 'Waka Waka' are maybe more 'Lion King' than 'Indestructible Beat of Soweto,' but the tune is sprightly and the sentiment heartwarming enough.

Ranking: A creditable round of 16 showing
'Don't Come Home Too Soon,' Del Amitri
Scotland's Official Song, France 1998
In stark contrast to the misguided chutzpah of Scotland's '78 campaign ("We'll really shake them up/When we win the World Cup"), the litany of shuffling pseudo-encouragements ("Do your best," "Even long shots make it") in Del Amitri's maudlin acoustic ode to ever-diminishing returns risked demoralizing the Scots into not getting on the plane in the first place.

Ranking: Last 16
'Shibobo,' TKZee and Benni McCarthy
South Africa's Unofficial Song, France 1998
Onetime South African wunderkind Benni McCarthy's verbal agility on this massive, unofficial France '98 hit more closely paralleled his latter-day, too-fat-for-the-2010-squad playing style than that of the lithe teenage superstriker who led Bafana Bafana to their first-ever World Cup finals. Still, a cracking 'Final Countdown' sample and a video depicting TKZee bouncing around in a gritty barbed-wire and peeling-paint stadium win points for this joyous, not-at-all-irritating effort.

Ranking: Semifinalist
'Nessun Dorma,' Luciano Pavarotti
BBC Theme Song, Italy 1990
Italia '90 wasn't the greatest tournament in football terms, but musically it stands head and shoulders above the rest. The BBC wisely resisted a specially composed theme tune for their coverage and instead latched on to Pavarotti's spine-tingling rendition of the aria from Puccini's 'Turandot.' All together now: "Vincerò! Vincerò V-ii-innn-cerò!"

Ranking: Finalist
'World in Motion,' New Order
England's Official Song, Italy 1990
The best football song ever, according to conventional wisdom. In reality, New Order's composition was little more than a rehashed (and pretty good) Other Two tune spruced up with a John Barnes rap interlude so incompetent it almost qualifies as avant-garde performance art. So, still the best football song ever, then.

Ranking: World champions!

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Baju

I love Shakira..., all the songs always make life more inspiration. Waka waka ee--ee

baju

August 03 2010 at 4:48 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
peters

...fabulous Shakira...fantastic staff....thats...brrriant...

July 06 2010 at 3:36 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Jessie

I'm with Charles M .... Ricky Martin's Cup of Life is my favorite!

July 05 2010 at 8:23 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
charles

what happened to the Cup of Life by Ricky Martin? World in mOtion is number 1.

July 05 2010 at 5:27 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Howard

This article was about World Cup songs from the past .

July 05 2010 at 4:16 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
khalil shahyd

How can you not even mention this year's offical theme from K'naan, Wavin Flag or the theme song for the 2006 Trinidad and Tobago team "Soca Warriors"?

Too Eurocentric in your options.

July 05 2010 at 12:45 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply