A staple song of England fans since its release in 1996, ‘Three Lions’ by Baddiel, Skinner & The Lighting Seeds is the anthem for an expectant nation
It’s coming home,
It’s coming home, it’s coming,
Football’s coming home.
It’s coming home,
It’s coming home, it’s coming,
Football’s coming home.
It’s coming home,
It’s coming home, it’s coming,
Football’s coming home.
It’s coming home,
It’s coming home, it’s coming,
Football’s coming home.
Everyone seems to know the score,
They’ve seen it all before,
They just know, they’re so sure
That England’s gonna throw it away, gonna blow it away
But I know they can play.
‘Cause I remember three lions on a shirt!
Jules Rimet still gleaming,
Thirty years of hurt
Never stopped me dreaming.
So many jokes, so many sneers,
But all those ‘oh so nears’
Wear you down, through the years,
But I still see that tackle by Moore
And when Lineker scored,
Bobby belting the ball
And Nobby dancing.
Three lions on a shirt!
Jules Rimet still gleaming,
Thirty years of hurt
Never stopped me dreaming.
I know that was then, but it could be again..
It’s coming home,
It’s coming home, it’s coming,
Football’s coming home.
It’s coming home,
It’s coming home, it’s coming,
Football’s coming home.
It’s coming home,
It’s coming home, it’s coming,
Football’s coming home.
It’s coming home,
It’s coming home, it’s coming,
Football’s coming home.
Three lions on a shirt!
Jules Rimet still gleaming,
Thirty years of hurt
Never stopped me dreaming.
Three lions on a shirt!
Jules Rimet still gleaming,
Thirty years of hurt
Never stopped me dreaming.
Three lions on a shirt!
Jules Rimet still gleaming,
Thirty years of hurt
Never stopped me dreaming.
We still believe, we still believe,
We still believe, we still believe
It’s coming home,
It’s coming home, it’s coming,
Football’s coming home.
It’s coming home,
It’s coming home, it’s coming,
Football’s coming home.
Tears for heroes dressed in grey,
No plans for final day,
Stay in bed, drift away.
It could have been all songs in the street,
It was nearly complete,
It was nearly so sweet
And now I’m singing three lions on a shirt!
Jules Rimet still gleaming,
No more years of hurt,
No more need for dreaming.
Talk about football coming home
And then one night in Rome
We were strong, we had grown.
Now I see Ince ready for war,
Gazza good as before,
Shearer certain to score
And Psycho screaming.
Three lions on a shirt!
Jules Rimet still gleaming,
No more years of hurt,
No more need for dreaming.
We can dance Nobby’s dance,
We can dance it in France…
It’s coming home,
It’s coming home, it’s coming,
Football’s coming home.
It’s coming home,
It’s coming home, it’s coming,
Football’s coming home.
It’s coming home,
It’s coming home, it’s coming,
Football’s coming home.
(Overlapping)
Three lions on a shirt!
Jules Rimet still gleaming,
No more years of hurt,
No more need for dreaming.
Three lions on a shirt!
Jules Rimet still gleaming,
No more years of hurt,
No more need for dreaming.
Both songs are littered with references to England’s past glories and failures, with certain moments highlighted as a reminder of the team’s capabilities and rebuttal to those critics who suggest that England are not good enough to win the World Cup.
“We thought, OK, let’s write a song not like all the other ‘we’re going to win’ songs that had tracked England’s failure to win the World Cup for many years,” Baddiel said in an interview with BBC Radio 2.
“Let’s write a song about the real experience of being a fan of the England football team’ – which is, we’re probably not going to win, or at least lots of people are saying we’re not and we’re not very good. But somewhere within us there is a kind of irrational, magical hope that we might anyway.
“And that’s the real condition, it felt to us, of being an England fan and that’s what we tried to embody in the lyrics. I think that spirit of defiance against against experience of punching through ‘we know we can play’ – that spoke to England fans. We didn’t know it spoke to England fans when we wrote it, but it did.”
Below is a selection of the lyrics from both songs, with an explanation.