David Baddiel has revealed ‘Three Lions’ has been rewritten with a “Christmassy” twist.
The 58-year-old comedian and his former ‘Fantasy Football’ co-host Frank Skinner have again teamed up with the Lightning Seeds to record a new version of the football anthem – which was first released for the Euro 96 tournament before being reworked for the World Cup in 1998 – and wanted to reflect the fact this year’s World Cup is taking place much later in the year by adding some festive sounds.
And the lyrics have also been “updated” to reflect the historic win for the England women’s football team in the Euros tournament over the summer.
Speaking on Radio X, David said: “Ian Broudie of The Lightning Seeds came to me and Frank Skinner and said: ‘The World Cup’s in December – shall we do it, redone with lots of sleigh bells and kids choirs and that?’
“And me and Frank said: ‘Let’s rewrite it with some Christmassy lyrics and some comedy’.
“And also we thought we’d write about the Lionesses winning, so update it a bit.
“We filmed the video the other day, I don’t want to give too much away.”
Frank and Ian confirmed last month they had been working on a new version of the song.
With Ian appearing as a guest on ‘The Frank Skinner Show’ on Absolute Radio, the host said: “So I’ve gotta ask you Ian, are you going to do a new version of ‘Three Lions’ for the World Cup? I think it’d be good, it’s an unusual sort of World Cup.”
Ian replied: “We should have a chat about that maybe.”
But Frank laughed: “We’ve left it a bit late, we’re filming the video on Thursday!”
The presenter then shared the first line of the new version, which honoured the England women’s team winning Euro 2022.
It starts: “Loving that Lionesses win…”