Ask anyone who’s ever been to a Tina Turner concert where their favourite version of Simply The Best was sung; some are going to say there was a version in Barcelona which is outrageous good. Some are going to reference London in 1989. It’s a subjective thing for them, and for me too. For me the greatest version was sung on 29 April 2001, at Ibrox.
I know that because I was there, and I was one of the people singing it. We skelped them 3-0 that day and I have many fond memories of that blissfully happy two hours, but 7000 Celtic fans getting to their feet to sing Rangers ludicrous “anthem” – and their fans all sitting down in glum resigned silence to let us – is one of the finest.
I love Tina Turner’s music and I also considered it a great song, and I’ve never been particularly bothered that knuckle draggers from the so-called PUL community have adopted it as some kind of slogan of supremacy.
I find that really cringe-worthy to be honest; if they were going to nick a song and make it their own, they really ought to have stolen something much more culturally aligned with their beliefs, rather than go for one made famous by a black Swiss American woman who self defines as what she calls a “Baptist Buddhist.”
She didn’t write the song either; that was Mike Chapman and Holly Knight.
They later went on to write Roy Chubby Brown’s “classic” “Living Next Door To Alice.”
Nor did Turner record it first; that would be Bonnie Tyler, who called it The Best, and it featured on her album Hide Your Heart a year before Turner did her famous cover version.
Why am I bothering with the history lesson?
Because Sevco fans need a history lesson, as they don’t actually know any of their own or that of the world around them. They sing one part of the song, and there’s a good reason why; “I knew you’d always be there for me / you’re the answered prayer from my rosary” being not really something an Ibrox crowd can sing.
That’s just one of the reasons I have such contempt for them.
Here’s another.
How many of you Sevconite goons felt a stab of fear reading that and went off to Google it?
Of course, there’s no such line but you didn’t know that because you brain-dead clowns don’t know half of what you think you do, proving my point.
Here’s another thing; when they sang it in the guise of Rangers, it did come off as a little supremacist.
But when Sevco fans sing it I really wonder who they are singing it to; themselves, their team or the people in the boardroom?
When you’re not even second best singing Simply The Best just sounds tragic.
“A lifetime of promises and a world of dreams,” sounds very Dave King … so perhaps it’s about him, although the only people who would ever sing such a song with him as the subject would be some kind of Boiler Room tribute band.
Which brings me to the ridiculous sight that The Daily Record thought they would force on their online readers today; Scott Arfield singing it on a bus with Joey Barton and the Burnley team. I have to laugh at Barton singing it, because back then he was a self-styled Celtic fan and Irish Republican, so it’s not clear if his version of it had Ibrox connotations.
Scott Arfield himself?
A Celtic fan, by the way.
Another identity crisis?
No, because Burnley had just won promotion and so they were celebrating.
Cause Sevco’s “adoption” of the song isn’t quite as original as their fans would have you believe …
I actually found fans of about a dozen sides singing it in a one hour internet search.
And to cap it all off, it’s a song immortalised by David Brent.
I wonder how many of them cringe watching that particular scene?
There’s something just so Ibrox about that moment … a self-centred, deluded clown with a fat gut trying to seem contemporary and cool and proving himself to be a backward tosser instead.
Time for a new tune I think.
But whilst we’re on the subject of Arfield, if he comes up to Ibrox I assume he’ll have to explain to some of those in his dressing room who he meant when he said that certain people at Sevco “couldn’t handle” Barton because he “told them some home truths.”
I’m sure the media will be all over that particular question, right?
In case they need their minds refreshing, here’s a sampler of his comments;
“Getting hammered 5-1 against your biggest rivals, it was never going to be rosy when they went into training on the Monday morning … It seems to me like the Rangers players just couldn’t hack him or didn’t want to hear some home truths. It speaks volumes for Joey – and reflects really badly on Rangers – that he has come back down here and has started winning man-of-the-match awards straight away.”
The media is enjoying itself pushing nonsense on us here … so I thought it would be nice to provide a little bit of context.
They are, without a doubt, simply the worst.
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