![]() Sham 69 have retitled the song Hurry Up England. (The official song, incidentally, is Embrace's World at Your Feet.) Hundreds were mooted, but Sham 69 won out. Because the official English World Cup anthem songs are so bloody awful, listeners to Virgin Radio were polled to select a band and a song they would prefer as "the alternative anthem". Next month Pursey and Sham 69 are poised to have their biggest ever hit with a reworked version of their song Hurry Up Harry (a minor classic if ever there was one). Significantly, when Pursey was asked to revisit the song for his Newsnight appearance, he changed the lyrics to make it an anti-Iraq war anthem. That song was written as a spiritual thing, as an anthem for the people of this country." I hope he's not using that song as a sort of backing innuendo to say Gordon and Tony are united. "Usually you see Blair with Geldof and Bono, the jet-set political messiahs," said Pursey of his song's use at the conference. Now Labour was hijacking If the Kids Are United. Sham 69 retired from the live stage in 1978, specifically because a concert had been broken up by battling National Front skinheads. ![]() During their heyday, Sham 69 were plagued by National Front members using their gigs as a recruiting ground for their imbecilic party. Poor Jimmy Pursey didn't know what hit him. What wasn't factored in was how and why Sham 69 ended up playing If the Kids Are United on BBC's Newsnight last year.Īnd then, out of nowhere, Sham 69. It was all going to plan: the reunion tour was going well, there was talk of the dreaded comeback album, and the interest was still there. Some are welcome, others are an excruciating embarrassment. So many of the class of '77 have taken this route. ![]() People turn up, you make noises about a new album with (oh no) "a whole new direction" and everyone nods their head but really just wants to hear the two or three hit singles again. Twenty years down the line, cognisant of how punk nostalgia has got a grip on the media and how lesser bands have reformed and toured successfully, you put the show back on the road. As punk recedes, so does your hairline and you become just another fondly remembered gobby singer from yesteryear. YOU know the score: you're in a punk band, you have a number of hits, you're supposed to be a "spokesperson" for the 1977 generation, you make some waves, then disappear.
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