Through the seasons before us..

It seems European football sparks a myriad of musical output - so perhaps we should be thankful that this trade has abated or we’d be flooded with nonsense records released by a bunch of scousers, prawn-sandwich eating cock-er-neys and, well, people from anywhere in the country other than Manchester! Today’s inclusion is called Magic in Madrid by a dubious collective who call themselves Tristam Shandy.

Tristam Shandy, I have discovered, is the subject of a series of eighteenth century novels written by Laurence Sterne. A set of comic novels, no less, repleat with bawdy humour that was immensely popular in it’s day apparently. Why this has inspired the name of this particular individual or individuals, I have no idea at all. There is also a person called Chris (the Mouth) Ashley who presumably provides the scathing spoken parts of the song - he is apparently a reasonably well known radio personality!

The song - given the title - unsurprisingly takes on a very Spanish sounding guitar-based ditty, with spoken words expressing doubt at Forest’s chances, with (almost) melodic verses and choruses exuding Forest’s greatness, some of it is actually quite infuriatingly catchy - and again, certainly gets you funny looks if you happen to be listening to it in the car with your windows open. There are the inevitable snippets of commentary and well, really, it’s probably on a par with many of the other songs I’ve included so far really. That isn’t really saying much.