As with yesterday’s topic, there are plenty of songs that I can choose from for this one. I could, for example, pick any one of a number of sings I’ve heard at gigs, or that were playing at events I’ve been to. I was originally going to pick Young Folks by Peter Bjorn and John, as it’s one of the songs that makes me think of Greenbelt – not because they’ve ever performed there, but because it seemed to be a favourite of the DJs responsible for the inter-performance music at mainstage! But I think that an association between a song and an event is somehow stronger if the link is more obscure, and I have a feeling that today’s song has one of the more obscure links!

I like football. I don’t get to go to many matches, but I like watching it on TV and the bigger the match the better. I was lucky enough to get a free trip, courtesy of my employer, to watch a match at Euro 2000 in Holland, and that’s the event that I’m thinking of here. But it’s not a football song as such. I have to confess that I do like some of the less cringeworthy ones – this combination of football and Euro-disco from Euro 2000 is excellent, and, of course, this one from the World Cup two years earlier absolutely has got to be the best football song recorded. Ever. But a football song is too obvious a link with football, so my choice is a song that has no real link with football at all. Except one.

My song for today is linked in my mind to Euro 2000, but it was actually released the previous year and I already knew it – and liked it – before it acquired the link. One of the things about summer football tournaments, though, is that they’re also linked with heat, and this song’s theme and setting is linked with heat too. That alone doesn’t make it a football song. But, almost by coincidence, the song and its accompanying video had been picked up in 2000 for use in a major advertising campaign, and, in the UK at least, it was one of the adverts that came on during almost every half-time break in one of the summer’s football matches. That meant I repeatedly heard the song in the context of football, and its twin association with summer and warmth meant that, for me anyway, it became a summer football song – in particular, a song of Euro 2000. Here are Sting and Cheb Mami with Desert Rose:

Direct Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3lWwBslWqg