Mother London | SFTW | The Listen With Nigel issue

The Listen With Nigel issue

03.08.2012

Guest
Editor

By Mother's Alice McGinn & Anthony Austin

Nigel is our man from Kettering; an ordinary bloke; a nice chap; a regional manager for a charity called Family Action. And he’s the inspiration behind this week’s music-come-Olympic issue of SFTW. Why…? Well throughout London 2012, Nigel is riding on London transport, listening to the world’s conversations and writing lyrics inspired by what he hears. He’s then turning the observations into a song every night for people to listen to the next day. To hear his songs so far, and to find how this musical experiment was born, visit listenwithnigel.com.

The history of the Olympic song

Penning an Olympic song is a tricky business. Not only to write an anthem that captures a seminal moment, but also a melody that can be tearfully performed in karaoke bars for years to come.

And even if these two challenges are successfully navigated, there’s a danger any song will inevitably be doomed by its association with an official sporting event.

So let’s take a look back at some of the very best, and very worst ‘official’ Olympic records…

First up a track written for the 1988 Seoul Olympics that stands out because it managed to be wildly successful - Whitney Houston’s One Moment In Time. It has thrown off all corny Olympic associations to become an X-Factor staple.

Next up, a collaboration that had all the potential to be a musical car crash, but actually turned out to be a triumph - opera singer Montserrat Caballé and Freddie Mercury’s Barcelona.

On a completely obscure note there was Oceania, the official song of the 2004 Greek games. Penned by Bjork, who in typical form didn’t fail to baffle the audience of the opening ceremony when she performed the song dressed as the ocean.

Finally, the official song of the 1980 Moscow Olympics was an Estonian Disco number complete with its very own Soviet Pans People. The one tends to be forgotten because it was the anthem of an Olympiad boycotted by several nations because of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

Let’s just hope our fellow nations also boycott Muse’s official 2012 number Survival. It’s certainly no Estonian Disco.

Weird musical collaborations

While we’ve got our man Nigel collaborating with a different musician everyday, we have to be honest and admit that musical collaborations don’t have a great heritage. From Elton John and Blue, to Elton John and Eminem, to Elton John and Lady Gaga. It’s a risky business.

But there have been some belters. Here are some of our favourites.

First up an oldie but a goodie. Who could forget Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald 'They can't take that away from me'. Fitzgerald’s vocal prowess combined with Armstrong’s signature voice and gregarious attitude makes for one of the most fun and unforgettable musical collaborations of all time.

Then in 1981, came Queen and David Bowie with their song ‘Under Pressure’. The gargantuan talent of these two musical titans should surely have cancelled one another out, but the song was a number one hit in three different countries, and was one of the longest charting singles in the U.K. Since it’s

release it has been continuously covered and sampled - perhaps most famously by Vanilla Ice’s 'Ice Ice Baby'.

More recently, serial offender in the bad collaboration stakes, Kanye West actually managed to pull off something rather good in his recent collaboration with Bon Iver. Best we don't mention '30 seconds To Mars'.

Quirky Olympic stories

Nigel is all about unearthing the quirky/unheard stories of 2012. So in that vein, we wanted to share some of the cracking stories that have been cropping up in the capital – the ones which you’ll never hear Gary Lineker talk about.

Our favourites so far include the man who helped change the tyre of a female Belarusian weightlifter, who to say thanks then proceeded to hand over a wash bag stuffed with everything from a Belarus national pennant to £50 in cash.

Meanwhile, the Dutch Olympic team has been bringing a fluorescent flavour to East London. They’ve brought their team bikes to the Olympiad and can be seen riding together in a bright orange convoy each as day as they cycle from their base in Alexandra Palace to the Olympic Park.

But the best has to be ‘dangle Boris’; the amazing moment where our illustrious mayor was left suspended from a faulty zip line in Victoria Park, while celebrating Britain’s first gold of the games. Within hours the meme had begun. We couldn’t have hoped for more.

John Betjeman meets Clinton Cards

In the course of his musical odyssey, Nigel has described his lyrical talents as ‘John Betjeman meets Clinton cards’ (Betjeman is a poet). It got us thinking that an event as epoch-defining as a home Olympics is surely the moment for a nation's poets to shine. So, let’s take a brief look at what is surely one of the strangest jobs in the UK.

In Britain, one of the earliest recognised Poet Laureates was Ben Jonson who was given the position by King James I in 1617. The appointment evolved from the earlier practice of including minstrels and versifiers as part of the King’s advisors. The Poet Laureate is a salaried role, and unusually traditionally includes some alcohol too. Ben Jonson received a pension of 100 marks and later an annual "terse of Canary Wine” whereas Tennyson preferred cold hard cash, drawing a whopping £99 "in lieu of the butt of sack." The current British Poet Laureate is Carol Ann Duffy. She is the first woman, first Scot, and the first openly gay person to hold the position. Her Olympic poem ‘Eaton Manor’ can be found here.

The National Lottery have also seen fit to organise a crowd-sourced poem 'Breathe', displayed in the Olympic Park. The lines included have been written by 12 winners chosen from the 12 lottery-funding regions. Listen to it here, as read by 'Voice of the Balls' Alan Dedicoat.

Stuck on the line

So far the transport doom-mongers have found their prophecies of Tokyo style congestion unfounded, and Nigel has had legroom aplenty on his travels round the capital. In fact, shops and cabbies are complaining about a tumbleweed-strewn wilderness where everyone expected hordes of angry and desperate consumers to be.

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Some companies had even gone to the extreme measure of setting up satellite offices to cope with the swollen arteries of the capital. Presumably, they feel a bit silly now.

In fact, the only person who seems to have had trouble getting from A to B is our dear BoJo. In case you missed it earlier it's below:

About the Author

Find out how Alice and Ant met Nigel at listenwithnigel.com. Nigel’s musical experiment aims to support the Family in Action charity he works for, it is the UK’s leading family charity. Since 1869 they have been meeting the changing needs of families. Today they help around 45,000 families every year, with over 100 services based in communities across the country. Visit http://www.family-action.org.uk/ for more information.

Credits

Lead Image. Salvador Brown; Story 1. Picture of Muse via Yam Mag; Story 2. Elton John and Lady Gaga from The Guardian; Story 3. Via Dangle Boris; Story 4. Image via Harrow Times; Story 5. Via Here is the city.