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Dizzee revamps England song to try toget Roy's boys to fix up and look sharp

 

Friday 22 June 2012 10:08 BST
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With expectations of its footballers suddenly on the rise, England needs a new anthem to unite behind. Dizzee Rascal has risen to the challenge after dashing to the studio to record an "emergency" England Euro 2012 song which he plans to release today.

The chart-topping grime star has updated "Shout (For England)", the 2010 World Cup song he released with the actor James Corden. The revised lyrics recognise the arrival of Roy Hodgson as manager and Danny Welbeck's scoring prowess.

The new version has dropped the original's "shout-out" to the absent Rio Ferdinand and now stresses the importance of "discipline" and "unity" in Hodgson's low-key set-up.

Since England's participation could end with Sunday night's quarter-final against Italy, Rascal had to get his song completed and available for download in record time. Speaking after a UK Music industry reception, the clearly harried musican told i: "You're holding me up. We've got to get my car and get to South London to record the England song. We're remixing it to make it sound like we're gonna win this time. I was working on the lyrics in the traffic on my way here. I'm still trying to finish it. You want me to read it out to you?"

The "Bonkers" singer fished a piece of paper from his pocket and unveiled the words soon to be chanted from the Kiev stands: "Come on England, here we go again/But this time we're gonna stick it out to the end. New manager and fresh faces/Top of the leader board, we're really going places. I see discipline and I see unity/ I see Welbeck & I see Rooney/ Yeaaah, Come on England... and so on and so forth."

Proceeds from the song, released by Simon Cowell's Syco label, will go to Great Ormond Street Hospital.

For many fans, England has not produced a worthy song since "Three Lions", recorded by David Baddiel, Frank Skinner and The Lightning Seeds in 1996. When that was updated in 2010, with the addition of Robbie Williams, the "30 years of hurt" line was replaced by "all these years", as the gap between England tournament wins stretched to 44 years.

Cowell called the 2012 Shout, based around the 1984 Tears For Fears hit, "incredible", adding it should have its debut radio airing this weekend.

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