Comedian Keith Allen has explained the not-so-hidden double meaning behind the iconic John Barnes rap on 1990 World Cup hit World In Motion and the anarchic recording process that somehow gave New Order their first number-one hit.
Speaking on Season 2 of the podcast Transmissions: The Definitive Story Of Joy Division And New Order, Allen explained that he had been tasked with contributing lyrics to the song to inject a bit of 'lightness' to the Manchester band’s music.
However, Allen turned up woefully unprepared for the recording having spent the previous night out clubbing, with just a single verse written down upon arrival.
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He said: “I get in there and they said, ‘You alright?’ I say, ‘Yeah, yeah.’ ‘What have you got?’ And I went, ‘Oh, here we go. ‘Here it is… E is for England. England starts with E. We'll all be smiling when we're in Italy.’
“Thinking that was an incredibly witty observation about ecstasy, and David Bloomfield [press officer at the Football Association] went, ‘F— off! You’re insane! The FA will never accept that. We can't do that.’
“Stephen Hague was there and then he played what he'd been doing the previous couple of days and it was like, ‘F— me! It's a completely different song, you know?’ He'd put in the chorus, he'd put in various melody lines that had never been there…so it’s very much on the hoof.
“And believe it or not, for some reason, Craig Johnston was there. He played at Liverpool, and it was his idea to have a rap. It wasn't the band's idea, it wasn't Steven Hague's idea, it's Craig Johnston's idea. So I thought, ‘Oh, I better write a rap then’.
“Basically, if you break it down, most of it is either homosexual innuendo or drug-taking innuendo. ‘You've got to hold and give and do at the right time. You can be slow or fast, but you must get to the line.’
“It's all about referencing drugs and homosexual activity. So I’m furiously trying to write this and there was this one bit – duh duh duh duh! – and I always wanted ‘It's one on one’ which was, the big thing of the day: ‘Are you on one? Are you on one?’
“Here's a football reference, which is one-to-one marking. So it's all quite clever, if you ask me. But there was this one bit, and I was thinking, ‘Oh what can I put in?’ And I remember saying to Tony [Wilson, Factory Records owner], ‘Is arrivederci an Italian word?’ ‘Yes, it is.’ I think he mastered in classics, actually.
“Well, thank you, Tony. And that's where it came from. Could have been spaghetti hoops, one on one.“
The question was then who should actually perform the rap. Having only been convinced to turn up at all on the promise of £300 apiece, Peter Beardsley, Steve McMahon, Chris Waddle, and Des Walker all had a go, but were all hopeless.
In rolled Paul Gascoigne, who Allen says drank three bottles of champagne in two hours and made an off-colour joke about Beardsley’s wife before getting down to business.
“So then he starts… and he hits it just like that,” Allen said. “He's got the tempo! He's got the rhythm, everything! Bang on it… but you cannot understand one word of what he’s saying.”
Thankfully, John Barnes stepped up to the mark and delivered… better than the others, at least. And thus an iconic song was born.
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