Peter Steward

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The Singer and the Songs

When the executive editor asked me to write something with a “quirky feel” to it I decided to take up the challenge by combining two of my loves – cricket and music.

I didn’t bargain for the strange world that this would take me into where the Aussies seem to rule in a rather despairing way.

Over the years poets and songwriters have scarcely waxed lyrical on the great game and I soon found myself stumped to remember even a handful of songs relating to the sport.

I wanted songs actually about the game and not theme pieces used on television coverage or adverts. The two that sprang immediately to mind were 10 CCs “Dreadlock Holiday” and “Howzat” by Sherbet – both pretty dreadful songs. The former is actually about being ripped off in Jamaica and the latter about a broken relationship and not really about cricket.

If these are bad things soon took a turn for the worse as I stumbled into a strange underworld of tacky lyrics and even tackier tunes and a journey into total mediocrity.

There are numerous versions of the Sherbet song including one in German by Juliane Werding. Can you imagine a German cricketer turning to the umpire and shouting the immortal words “Da staunste was?” “Nicht Heraus” would almost certainly be the reply! This song is straight out of the Eurovision Song Contest book.

But it got so much worse. Suman Chatterjee wrote a song called “Howzat” that had nothing to do with the Sherbet one. Most of this song is recited in Bengali before breaking into a guitar based backing. Apparently Chatterjee is massive in the Bengali world as a singer-songwriter, guitarist, poet, journalist and television presenter who, according to Wikipedia, shot to fame in the 1990s with such albums as “Tomake Chai” and “Boshe Anko.”. On the evidence of this one song, cricket has obviously upset him in some dramatic way.

Then there’s good old Robert Calvert with his own “Howzat” song which includes the cliché about bowling a maiden over and the immortal lines “You knocked her for six, you always score with the chicks.” Calvert was a South African who for a while was lead singer with Hawkwind. Thankfully, as far as I know, Hawkwind never wrote a song about cricket. Calvert died in 1988 after also writing such non classics as “Cricket Lovely Reggae” and “Cricket Star.”

By now I was getting desperate in my search for decent cricket songs, but things were to take a turn for the worse.

Sherbet were an Australian group and so I decided to have a search down under (if you’ll pardon the phrase). And there I found dross the like of which I had only previously featured in nightmares. What I came up with was the Australian song-writing equivalent of sledging.

So I can’t promise you household names, just a catalogue of musical also rans that just make you question how some people get record deals in the first place.

You don’t have to look much further than The Lucksmiths from Melbourne. Wikipedia tell us that they are renowned for their “creative and witty use of language.” I’ll let you be the judge of that. On their classic cricket song “Victor Trumper” they tell us “and he dances down the wicket and he’s stumped and I am stunned” – absolutely is my answer to that one.

Ruck Rover have equally awful songs by the title of “Reverse Swing” which is about a game of indoor cricket and “Avril” which celebrates Australia’s finest woman spinner – possibly Shanetta Warne!

Before giving up on the whole subject I stumbled across another Australian band The Mabels who wrote a number of cricket themed songs including “A sporting declaration” with the immortal lines “She’s already got a scoreboard full of runs, she’s got a sporting declaration on her mind.”

Apparently Ruck Rover, The Mabels and even The Lucksmiths are not the most famous exponents of Aussie cricket rock. That dubious title goes to singer-songwriter Paul Kelly who wrote songs about poring over cricket books “Other People’s Houses” and one entitled simply “Bradman”.

To date I haven’t been able to track these down and at this point I decided to give up before the men in white coats (and I don’t mean the umpires) come to take me away. So I will leave you with just about the only song ever written about cricket that doesn’t make you want to smash your head against the wall. I refer of course to Roy Harper’s classic “When an Old Cricketer Leaves the Crease.” Listen to that and it might just restore your faith.