David Baddiel, Frank Skinner and The Lightning Seeds have re-released their football anthem Three Lions as a Christmas song with reworked lyrics and a video featuring the England women’s football team – the Lionesses.
Composer Ian Broudie announced back in October that a revisited version of the song may be on the cards and that he’d been inspired by the Lionesses’ European Championship win.
The song entitled ‘Three Lions (It’s Coming Home for Christmas)’ starts with the line, ‘Loving that Lionesses win’ and goes on to encourage the men’s team at the current World cup with statements such as ‘Three Lions on a sleigh, with She-Lions inspiration’.
The video begins with the pair watching TV, mirroring their previous music videos but on the television is the infamous press conference following the Lionesses victory where you can see Mary Earps dancing on the table in front of Sarina Wiegman.
The lyrics go on to say, ’56 years of hurt, for the men’s game’ and ’20 weeks of hurt, for the women’s game, obviously’ as they continue to acknowledge their achievements in summer throughout.
The comedic track doesn’t ignore the controversies surrounding this World Cup though as they sing, ‘When they decided on Qatar, should have checked VAR’.
The accompanying video also features Geoff Hurst dressed as Father Christmas with European winners Beth England and Jess Carter making an appearance.
The song follows the earlier 2022 Lionesses release which featured former players Fara Williams, Rachel Yankey, Faye White, Rachel Brown and Anita Asante alongside Chelcee Grimes, The Lightning Seeds and Baddiel.
That version featured lines about current Lionesses players including Manchester United’s Alessia Russo.
The current Christmas version is the fifth official release of the track with two of the previous releases topping the charts.
So far, this version has peaked at number 20 on the official UK Top 40 singles chart but may climb higher depending on England’s performance the nearer we get to Christmas.
Hopefully the song and the inspiration of the Lionesses’ achievement over summer will propel England over the line in their last 16 tie with Senegal later today.
