Hits 21 - 1998 (4): B*Witched, Baddiel & Skinner, Billie Piper

Episode Date: March 12, 2026

Hello, everyone! Welcome back to Hits 21, the show that's taking a look back at every single UK #1 hit..You can follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Hits21UKYou can email us: [e-mail] 21 DOES NOT OWN THE RIGHTS TO ANY MUSIC USED IN THE EPISODES. USAGE OF ALL MUSIC USED IN THIS PODCAST FALLS UNDER SECTION 30(1) OF THE COPYRIGHT ACT 1988

Hi there everyone and welcome back to HITS21, the 90s. Where me, Rob, me, Andy. And me, the dad she looks like, are looking back at every single UK number one of the 1990s. Email us at Hits21 podcast at gmail.com, Twitter us at Hits21 UK. Thank you ever so much for joining us again. We are currently looking back at the year 1998.

and this week we'll be covering the period between the 31st of May and the 11th of July. All right then, it's time to press on with this week's episode, Andy, the UK album charts as we go over the summer of 98. How are things? We start this period with a load of garbage at number one. That's what it is, just total garbage. That's the band, Garbage, with version 2.0, which went number one for one week. and went double platinum. After that, we've got

Simply Red again with Blue, which went number one for one week and went double platinum. But then we got Boys on with where we belong, which went number one for one week and went double platinum before Simply Red are up there again with Blue for another week. Then we've got Embrace

with the Good Will Out, which is what happens when you want to throw a nice man called William out of your house, the Good Will Out, which went number one for one week and went platinum. I'm trying to make my bit a bit more like Eds, you may see, which basically means making, basically means make extremely laboured puns about all of the things.

I hate my bit. What are you doing? But the next one is when you want to have a chat, but only on the very, very fringes, it's talk on corners by the cause, which are number one for just the one week, but we're nine times platinum all told. and it will recur at number one quite a lot over the next few months. That is the highest selling album within the year of 1998. Quite impressive considering it only came out in June. Within 1998, yeah, there went nine times platinum and I sold everything else.

Not a quiet year as well, really, considering we've got stuff like Urban Hymns, the Titanic soundtrack, we've got Paul Proby Williams, all kind of peeking around now. Pretty impressive for the cause to take this year. And as I say that, we're nine times platinum, but it's not enough to keep off. Five with five, five's debut album called Five with a band of five members. And guess how many weeks it went to number one for? Four. One. One.

And it went single platinum. And that's all, that's all for this week. All right then. In the news, in Germany, 101 people are killed when a high-speed train crashes near the city of Hanover. In Nigeria, 30 people are killed in riots after the unexpected death of opposition leader, Meshud Abiola, and in the UK, football's first openly gay professional player Justin Faschon is found dead at the age of 37.

The England men's national team competes at the FIFA World Cup, ultimately being knocked out in the round of 16 by Argentina. England's exit is marred by a controversy after David Beckham is sent off during the match. The tournament was eventually won by host nation France, beating Brazil 3-0 in the final. In TV news, Sex and the City makes its debut on American TV, while Richard Bacon and Katie Hill bury a Blue Peter time capsule in the foundations of the Millennium Dome. But the big news is Jerry Halliwell announcing that she will be leaving the Spice Girls to embark on a solo career citing creative differences.

Oh dear. Oh, very dear. David Beckham and Jerry Halliwell pariahs for a week. Although one of them is very popular with Victoria Beckham So, you know, they're not enemies of the same people No, that's very true So, Ed, while England and Britain, I suppose, are having numerous crises over David Beckham

and Jerry Halliwell letting us down, how are the US faring? Bleaker! But not necessarily in a bad way. That will hopefully make sense in just one moment. Billboard number one albums for the period begins with one week of bleak but engaging hardcore hip-hop, at least in my opinion.

As DMX hits hard with his debut LP, it's dark and hell is hot, before a broken up three weeks in the limelight for the City of Angels soundtrack. Also has a date stamp that makes whole milk sound tenacious, boasting, as it does, a Tamagocchi toting trifecta of Alanis Morissette,

the Goo Goo Goo Dolls, and U-2. Its streak of bril-creamed Hollywood weepery is however interrupted for a fortnight by MP de last don by Master P which is honestly like hiding a revenge porn zine in a copy of the Daily Mail Master P

in my opinion was a fucking crime for which someone should apologise anyway singles well a single I thought the boy is mine was popular here But over in the States Branding and Monica Were bickering in becktail-bating fashion

At the top of the charts For 13 straight weeks It was massive And did we find out Whose the boy was at the end Boys are not possessions Ed Boys are full autonomy Just like girls do

Lies I think a lot of men need to be put in their place Painfully And with lots of straps Anyway, rock I'm happy for you Alright then, so The first song

Up this week is This Okay, this is Okay, this is Selavi by Bewitched Released as the lead single From the group's debut studio album titled Bewitched

Selovie is Bewitched First single to be released in the UK and their first to reach number one, and it's not the last time we'll be discussing Bewitched during our 90s coverage. Selavi went straight in at number one as a brand new entry. It stayed at number one for two weeks. In its first week atop the charts, it sold 153. Thousand copies beating competition from The Boy is Mine by Brandy and Monica,

horny by Moose Tea, and come back to what you know by Embrace, and in week two it sold 93,000 copies beating competition from My All by Mariah Carey, Kung Fu Fighting by Bus Stop, and how does it feel by England United? When it was knocked off the top of the charts, Sellevee fell three places to number four.

By the time it was done on the charts, it had been inside the top 104, 19 weeks, the song is currently officially certified platinum in the UK as of 2026 Andy take it away with B-star witched Lovely Second consecutive week on the show with my uncle Frank hanging around the charts there

which I would have loved him to get to number one but you know Say Levy Anyway Oh that was the reaction that deserved So this Yes, I had the joy, by the way, of actually seeing Bewitched Live just about six months ago at Manchester Pride.

And they are looking unbelievably youthful. Like, that was the thing that struck me the most. I was trying to do the maths on it. They must all be in their 50s or around 50. And they looked amazing. I was just like, I was just in awe of them. Like, they make it look so easy. Still doing loads and loads of moves.

Still jumping around in their double denim. Well, they had a triple quadruple denim. And still look at it. absolutely amazing. So, yeah, it was a lovely time. But I have to say I'm not a big fan of Bewitched. You know, their Oof is pretty small, to be honest. Like, are you the only ones I really know are this and Blaming on the Weatherman.

And I like blaming on the Weatherman. This I like, but it's complex. Like, it's, there's a lot of cliff notes to my liking of this song. I am not someone who has a problem with gimmicks. I think gimmicks are fine. Many of the most popular pop songs ever rely on some sort of silly little catch to get you interested. That's kind of how this business works. They certainly aren't the first.

They certainly won't be the last. I don't really like relying on your nationality or your ethnicity or anything like that as a gimmick. It kind of feels a bit like sort of, you know, the whole kind of what you used to call playing Tom sort of thing. You know, where it's, you know, like when you get comedians. who do really over-the-top Nigerian accents or Indian accents or something because they're of that heritage and I just don't like it.

It's not for me to say whether people should be doing that but like the whole Irish, like the ridiculous level of playing up to your Irishness in this song, I don't really like it to be honest because it's not like authentic Irishness. It's so like, oh, fiddle-d-D-D! You know, let's go and play with a leprechaun. It's really like extremely sterileged.

typical Irishness in this. And it's just, yeah, yeah, not great on that score. And the thing is with that, is that they lay it on so thick as well, all they really need to do. I mean, obviously they've got the Irish jamsin, that's fair enough, but all they really need to do is that some people say I look like your dad, that's all they really need to do. And that hooks you win. Oh, right, they're Irish, they're an Irish girl group.

The fact that they then keep coming back to it, and then they've not just got the Irish dance, but they've got the whistle music going alongside it as well. and it's and yeah they overplay it to a almost ridiculous level to be honest and it just makes me feel a little bit like they're just taking the piss out of themselves

to an extent that I don't really like I was like who told them to do that because somebody's told them to do that somebody's like oh here's the thing about you let's take the piss out of it which I don't really like having said that as a pop song oh my god is this good like

it's so catchy, especially the chorus. I mean, I think the verse is fantastic as well. I think that little lilting, hey, that up-down thing, like makes it really, really easy to sing. Excellent bridge. Excellent bridge that really connects everything together really well

with the, hey, hey, hey, is its own little highlight in itself. And the chorus, especially, is like just through that lovely through line of it's not boring, but it's easy to sing. And the jolliness around it and the jolliness around it and the kind of energy around the song means even if the melody is a little bit boring,

you're just being carried away with it anyway. So as a piece of music, it's a slam dunk, and it always makes me smile. It always makes me happy. It's a lovely little slice of cheesy 90s pop. I just wish they weren't willing to, like, make a mockery of their own blend as much as they do in this.

And it's an oddly serious take to have on the sale of view, but I don't know. I would feel the same about any other place, you know, if they did it like that. Just, yeah, I don't know. I'm garbling my words because I'm not really sure how much it matters. But it's the only thing that really sticks out to me in an otherwise very, very, very pleasant piece of cheesy pop.

Yeah, when you say pleasant, they should make it illegal to be this charming and adorable, shouldn't they? I think in a weird way this week, I've kind of realized that bewitched is sort of where my memory actually begins. I was a bigger fan of the Spice Girls, but by the time I was really getting into pop music, Jerry had actually left. So Bewitched was like the first current thing I was aware of and interested in. Like it felt like it had a future. I think if you were to start the movie of my life with the sound, it would either be the giggling sunbaby from the telitubbies

or it would be the first, uh-oh, from this. I've gone through phases with Bewitched since then. I've kind of hated them at points and have seen them as a kind of much lesser spice girls. They sort of are, but not really in a way that makes hate in them justifiable for me. they had different aims, different ways of achieving those aims and probably shouldn't be judged on the same terms with the hindsight that we've like now got. Because like, this is for children. Like, it's something that's emerged very slowly over the course of the 90s, but the number of

acts for actual children as opposed to young adults and adolescents feels like it's at its highest numbers. It's maybe the early 70s or maybe even the 50s. Lots of acts that come in with a gimmick or a hook that's child focused as a point. as just child friendly. Bewitched look, sound and behave like CBBC presenters. One of their first ever gigs was apparently a primary school. At the time, this may bewitched the youngest girl group to ever have a number one in the UK.

And apparently they still aged themselves down to appeal to more children. And when their fortunes were fading in the future, a couple of years after this, they started covering songs like Mickey and play that funky music. Like, I think they were probably about one. step away from just like redoing oops upside your head or Superman because they were so keen to make stuff that was suitable for kids party playlists. But I do think that this is really bright and energetic and it actually I think maintains its momentum for quite a considerable amount of time. And just at the point where I start to get a little bit tired, there's that sudden slowdown

wind up and key change that brings the fiddle in and a whole host of hop, hop, and jigging. You know, the fiddle explosion is a double-edged sword, like you were saying, Andy. But before I figured out whether I like it or not, we're already into the final chorus, and it's adjusted well to the key change and sounds like we've arrived in a new place. It's peppy. It fits the brief, I think. Going back to this being a song for the kids, the innuendo is a bit of a double-edged sword for me, too. Not that I find it, like, inappropriate.

My issue is more that they can't fully commit to the innuendo, because they're aiming this at nine-year-olds, which means it comes over a bit limp. It's cheeky, but it's not quite naughty, I don't think. And I'm always curious, too, Andy, like you, with regards to, like, what Irish people think of this, because I feel like this isn't a million miles away from how Shaggy was perceived and represented

where he was seen as, like, a jester-type figure with a funny Jamaican accent that we could all copy and do terrible impressions of. Like, I'll bewitched just seen as this quirky little Irish pop group with funny Irish accents and fiddle breakdowns and all the things you would expect from like a postcard Irish town. But like regardless, I think this achieves its aims

relatively successfully. And I'm glad to have come back to this because I was sure I didn't like anything Bewitched did anymore. And then I was outside Kings Cross Station a few weeks ago just with some time to kill and I was listening ahead to the number ones in 98.

And I did a big smile. A big smile when this came over my headphones. I'm keen to see if there were other number one to stand up because it's been a long time, at least a decade, I think, since I've really listened to Bewitched. Ed, how about you? Yes, this is incredibly charming. It's very well structured and catchy as a piece of popular music. It is, yeah, Ireland is their personality and their character arc, which is a little bit off-putting, really, and it's not like, oh, this is the, you know, the something one or the other one. It is just, they are all on.

Ireland. They are all sort of coquettish and cheeky in a kind of weird balance. You did allude to this, Rob. But it does feel a bit like when, you know, almost what Britney Spears was doing the next year, but really leaning into the girlishness. Like if Britney Spears's voice had gradually gone up and up as she went on and she started actually playing with jump ropes and everyone's like, uh, feel strange now. feel very strange. Because it's not, look at the lyrics. I mean, it's not,

I would say it's naughty. Show you mine and I'll show you yours. I mean, this isn't, this isn't children's music. I mean, it's almost, if you're in isolation,

if you actually ramped up the kind of girlishness of this, it wouldn't be out of place in that bloody brass eye peed again special. Yeah, it's true. It just doesn't work. A little bit. Yeah.

Hair, I don't like hair. But yeah, remember at the beginning of Hit Me One More Time, when Britney Spears sold herself to the world by saying, Hello, I look like an old man. It's just thinking about it. I don't think that, oh, they say I look like my dad. I don't think that'll work with an American artist. It would just be bizarre.

Especially with the jump ropes and the skipping already, the equation. I've got a big beer in a pop belly I hope you're like cock I'm Britney Spears but yes this is so charming and catchy

and it's brief I know that doesn't sound like much of a doesn't sound like much of a high praise but I said the same thing about wannabe and it just in that case as it does here It shows a song that knows its ingredients, knows how to hit hard with them,

knows how to mix them up just enough, and then get out. This doesn't need to be more than like two minutes and 45 seconds. It's not that you don't remember it as well because it's shorter. But this is kind of, you know, it is obviously off the back of things like the Spice Girls. It's supposed to be mildly like, hey, I'm the, I'm the wolf today, the girls in charge. It's like the, it's the broad corporate. side of girl power coming through. So it's basically just sex with a lot of schoolgirl giggling. It isn't to become one. This. No mistake there. I think, unfortunately, if you were going to

compare this introduction to the Spice Girls, which, you know, sadly, given how close they've been placed together in this retrospective, it's hard not to do. This feels far more broad and there's less potential. And that's not to say anything about the performance because actually, aside from some rather obvious auto tune in places here on some of the vocals, it's actually quite a charming performance. There's a lot to complain about in the way it's packaged,

but a good song is a good song. So, yeah, a stray note, nymphs and river dance together at last. Yeah, it's hard to dislike. but it is a little bit, a little bit plasticy compared to what we've been given from the, from the Spice Girls and All Saints. And you could say, yeah, it's aimed in a slightly different direction.

I'm not 100% sure it is. I think they're just kind of lost direction a bit in the marketing. But yeah, I like it, though. How can you not? You're right. I mean, I would like it to be more authentic and less plasticy, but say, lovey. All right, then.

Got a bigger laugh the second time than the first time, and I just need to warm you up. Sorry, I had my microphone off the first time. It would have been a similar. Okay. Similar reaction then. All right, the second song up this week is this. Okay, this is three lions in the street.

It was nearly so sweet. Okay, this is Three Lions 98 by Bedele and Skinner and the Lightning Seeds. Released as a standalone. collaborative single Three Lions 98 is the second single to be released by Badilin Skinner and the Lightning Seeds in the UK and their second to reach number one. It is their last number one of the 1990s but not their last number one overall. Three Lions 98 went straight in at number one as a brand new entry. It stayed at number one for three weeks.

In its first week atop the charts it sold 232,000. copies beating competition from Vindaloo by Fat Les, Got the Feeling by five, Carnival de Paris by Dario G, the Rockefeller Skank by Fat Boy Slim and Life by Desiree. In week two, it sold 150,000 copies beating competition from Ghetto Superstar by Praz, lost in space by the Lighthouse family and looking for love by Karen Ramirez. And in week three, it sold 104,000 copies beating competition from Intergalactic by Beastie Boys, saved tonight by Eagle Eye Cherry, and how do you want me to love you by 911? When it was knocked off the top of the charts, Three Lions 98 fell three places to number four.

By the time it was done on the charts it had been inside the top 104, 17 weeks, The song is currently officially certified platinum in the UK. As of 2026, Ed, how are we on this again, but different? Is it? Well, it's three lions on a shirt and also three words in my notes. And they are, I don't care. No, that's a little bit hard. I mean, I will say this, this is punchier.

It is also a lot slicker. It is also very clearly just become a necessary cash in every two years at this point. And that we still believe at the beginning is really, really, really limp. We still believe. It's not even a hook. It's like, just say it. You know, you can put your hands. over your ears so you don't have to embarrass yourself. We just say it, you know, do something, do a thing.

Yeah, I, you know, but I found it slightly hard to relate to this and it's, you know, cultural significance in the first, you know, unique instance. Now this is something else. I'm going to leave it to people who actually have a little bit more of a stake in this than I do. So, yeah, that's that. Andy, three lions 98. I'm sure Rob will go into more about the actual changes between this and the 96th version. I think it can broadly be defined as just it's changed its intentions slightly. And it's made me look back on a comment I made actually not about three lines, but about world in motion way back in 1990. Because I made a comment when we talked about that and I went quite a lot into my feelings about football music as a genre.

And I said that it often makes me feel physically unsafe. And I've remembered it because a few people, quite a few people have repeated that comment. back to me. Like, it just, it's just, like, I don't know, whether it struck a chord or whether people think that's going too far or whatever. So I thought, no, I do stand by it. I do stand by that. That a lot of football music makes me feel like, oh, like, it just feels oppressive to me

and makes me feel a bit like, this is not my room to be in. You know, I want to leave when that music's on. And not necessarily because it's rubbish, but because of the connotations. And then I thought, why is that? Because I actually quite like football now. I went through a long period of hating everything to do with football and I took a passive interest in the World Cup but otherwise, no. And now, I don't know if I mentioned this on the air before,

but ever since I've moved to Stockport four years ago, I've become a big fan of Stockport County. Went to my first county match with our very own dear Rob and his wife and with my husband. We had a great time and it helped that it was a really amazing match. It was real thriller. I went to penalties. But I've been going ever since.

Not every week, but I go all the time. I've been to loads of matches. a county and I love it and I've never once felt physically unsafe, not at all um like nowhere near that I've always felt completely happy completely welcome completely with my

people while I've been there and the difference is really that everyone's there primarily just for the love of it people just enjoy being there and some you'll win some you'll lose and yes there's a little bit of like people

get angry when you're not doing very well and stuff, but not to the level that you see in the Premier League or in international football. Like, everyone's just having a fun day out. Most of the chance that you hear are genuinely quite funny, often taking them out of themselves rather than the other team, and the other team tend to do the same. You get no nonsense between the fans and the away fans. You know, it's just, and there's loads of kids there, and, like, it's just really relaxed. And, you know, considering this is me as a fairly obvious game.

a nerdy man who doesn't, wouldn't know Limele Messi if he walked into me. You know, it's quite a big deal for me to say that about a football ground. And the difference to me is that from the people I know who are big fans of the Premier League, I'm not talking about you, Rob, I'll talk about my family mainly, who are big fans of the Premier League and the way people are with international football as well. It seems like there's a bit of a divide where when you're in the lower leagues, it's kind of about the enjoyment and about the community feeling of going to the football and supporting your local team

and just wanting them to do well but not knowing whether they will do well and the difference is a level of entitlement sets in once you're at the higher levels where it becomes less about wanting to win and more about needing to win because a certain thing seems to happen where you cross this Rubicon

where it becomes a big part of your identity and that makes you think that well me as a person I have rights and football is part of my identity therefore it is my right to win at football I think that's the joining mechanism that people make in their head is that it's somehow their right to do well at football because it matters to them.

When it's a game that is nothing to do with them, ultimately, they just support it. It's not much different from playing poker or something like that. And I think that disconnect is so profound that it's basically two different sports, and it's two different types of people attending those sports. There's people who want to win, and there's people who needs to win, and there's people who feel like it would be great if they do win and feel like they deserve it to people who feel actually entitled.

And the reason I'm making this point is not just because I think that's a difference between enjoyable football and unenjoyable football and safe space, friendly community football and unsafe, scary football. It's also the difference between 96, Three Alliance and 98 Three Alliance, I think, where it suddenly becomes no more years of hurt and it suddenly takes on this time where it's like, no, we're going to win because we're England. like we're going to win now.

Why wouldn't we? Where England, when the previous version was made, I mean, I had a little bit of that, but it was more just about hope. Like, we probably won't win, but let's have some hope, which is fine.

That's how everybody feels with they support the team. But it just seems like there's a bit of a scrooby ententee which has got worse and worse over the last several decades, especially over the last decade when England have become contenders

and England have started doing very well in international tournaments where nothing but winning is good enough and it's like an international incident if we don't win the football. Like, it's a disgrace. How dare people beat us? How dare Gareth Southgate only get us to the semifinals,

get them sacked? And it's so toxic and it's so horrible, and it's everything I hate about English culture. And I do mean English culture, by the way, not British. And I think that that's encapsulated by that slight turn. And it's not in this that heavily. But that, to me, is what it all comes down to, is the entitlement, the difference between want and need

and the difference between enjoyment and needing it as a way to sustain yourself, I think you can track it through 96 to 98, and it just kept getting worse to the point where international and top-tier football is kind of all like that, it seems to me, as an adult, whereas the lower leagues, that's where I'm happy. So, in short, nice song,

relatively unchanged, very unchanged musically from the original, relatively unchanged lyrically, but where it does change, I think it's quite important, and it sets a fairly bad tone for the 21st century. doesn't the word entitled, which I think was quite apt, sadly sum up a lot of the right-wing political climate in our country at the moment. Yeah, I think you could lay the graph of like people who've joined Reform UK against the graph of like people who've got pissed and thrown a punch at football. You could lay those

over each other and you'd have a relatively similar picture. Like a lot of the same people. people who need to win they can't just take part in life they have to win at the expense of others life owes them happiness life owes them victory so I mean I know it ends up getting relatively serious and I don't think this song is harmful in any way

I just think this like is a bit of a clarion call for that attitude and to me it's a very distinct difference between what to me is sportsman-like behaviour which is what you see in the lower leagues and very unsportsman-like behaviour which you see oversock. What you've both been talking about here, by the way, has reminded me of what may be my favourite football badge of all time. So for the Chinese club, Guangzhou football club, they no longer exist. They were dissolved in January 2025 after existing for 71 years. Their badge was like

a tiger or like a lion or something like roaring and a football in flames on the crest. And then at the top of the badge, it just says, be the best forever, which is my favorite phrase, because that's like, yep, if you want to sum it up, that's how you sum it up. Be the best forever.

Jesus. Now it's just, you'll do. Okay, everyone, I'm going to do a football bit, so forgive me my football bit. Here we go. And here comes Brit Pop now, gliding along the surface of the water on jet skis, clutching tightly to the rope,

propelled forward by the motor of the speedboat that's carrying him to his date with destiny he's inching closer to the ramp he still holds tight onto the rope he braces his knees he closes his eyes and yes he's done it he's actually jumped over the shark I don't believe it

never have the words they think it's all over it is now been more true except for that one day at Wembley in 1966 I suppose I think in one fell swoop this managed to confirm that Britpop was probably deader than dead and that Cool Britannia was probably already dwindling as well. This sound popping back to number one feels very unusual.

It all makes the summer of 1996 feel like a very long time ago. England barely making it out of the group stages and then crashing out to the first decent team they played. Kind of hammered home the point as well. The English football still had a ways to go to be considered level with those on the Europeans. and global stages and that the optimism of Euro 96 hadn't really amounted to much in a material sense.

England would need to go through another cycle and two more managers to look like a good side again. But I think what exposes this more than anything are those changes to the lyrics, Andy, that you picked up on. Three Lions 96 had years of football support to draw on. You know, the icons of 1966, the 30 years of failure since then, English football being shut out and left in the dark, during the back half of the 1980s,

the fact that we were hosting a tournament so soon after Heisel and Hillsborough, it told what I thought was a really beautiful tale about enduring hope in the face of constant adversity. There's a former Guardian journalist called Chris Petit, and he wrote a review of David Peace's book called The Damned United, the one that got turned into that film.

And in the review of the book, there's this amazing line that Chris Patee. Petit writes about Brian Clough, obviously the subject of both the book and the film, who was, of course, if people don't know, most people probably will, but Brian Clough is always referred to as the greatest manager that England never had. And the line from Chris Petit reads, Clough's tragedy was that deep down, he knew that winning was only lost deferred. And I think that's something Three Lions 96 understood very well. Three Lions does not understand this.

Brian Clough went up for the England job on a few occasions, most notably in 1977 and then again in 1982, but he was turned down on both occasions. And I wonder if it had something to do with that sense of tragedy that Chris Pate kind of picks up on. Clough has always said that he was overlooked by the FA because he thought that they thought he would run the show, and he agreed with them on that.

But I wonder if it all ran a bit deeper. By the time that he'd retired, Cloughford lost the gift, unfortunately. He was consumed by alcoholism in the end and died age 69. I think that sadness and sense of tragedy has always followed the England team around. And English football, for that matter, has always kind of followed them around. But I feel like sometimes the people at the top of English football in the FA have tried to deny that, which is why Three Lions 96 really works for me, whereas, eh, three lines 98, nah. The lyrics tell no resonant story.

Like, we might win this time becomes we will win this time. The jingoism and the sense of arrogance is dialed up a few notches. This is the one where the music video has all the German players with the word kunz on the back of their jerseys. The comedy and bad singing are more prevalent. They use the word war after deciding to cut it from three lines 96. There's no sense of the conflict between like English football's iconography and English football's underachievement clashing here.

There's no sense of the ghosts hanging over it all. It's literally just, we're going to win in a song with a self-congratulatory tone from the performers who open up the song with a victory lap of their own, sampling the crowd, singing the song. And there's this weird sense as well that, like, the defeat in the semi-final at Euro 96 can't be talked about directly. It has to be sugar-coated and sanitised.

Tears for heroes dressed in grey. And then a nil-nill-nill-drawer against Italy, that absolutely no fucker remembers is an example of how the England team were now strong and had grown. This song forgets that winning is just losing deferred, as I said before. It seems to think that winning is the answer to everything

and all of life's problems. I think I agree with you, Andy, that this is actually the sad side of football fandom that's less about hope and more about lauding it over somebody else and lording it over teams that don't win as often as your team does. It's still got the same,

backing. So it's nice and punchy like you were saying, Ed. It's still got the bare bones of the composition, which I think are really stirring. But it's weird because I think Three Lions 96 is the one that everybody brings back for every tournament that England take part in. But it's Three Lions 98 that leans into the kind of jingoistic, nationalistic, anti-German rhetoric that everyone associates with the song, whether they like it or not. It's like the original song has been lumped in with this one, which is a shame. This version never comes back to the charts, but its atmosphere and shallow message are so large

that they've kind of spread to Three Lions 96, which I guess maybe raises the question of whether jumping the shark is just being eaten by sharks, deferred. Yeah, I'm not keen on this, really. I really, I was keen to get to Three Lions 98 after 96, because I feel like it maybe came as a bit of a surprise to some of our listeners that I really like

Three Lions 96 as much as I do but Three Lions 98 I feel like it it's it was described by Tom Ewing of Freaky Trigger of the popular blog he said that

Three Lines 96 was like the first album and Three Lines 98 was like the difficult second album that you've got to do in half the time sort of thing and yeah I feel that this feels like it hasn't been workshops like lyrics haven't been gone back over

yeah we still believe it's I don't know it's all a bit limp for me this but the composition lifts it out of the out of the pie I would just again echo the point that if you want to learn how to not be a football

pan this is your guide basically yeah so on to the third and final song this week which is this okay this is because we want to by Billy Piper. Released as the lead single from her debut studio album titled Honey to the Bee,

Because We Want to is Billy Piper's first single to be released in the UK and her first to reach number one, and it's not the last time we'll be discussing Billy during our 90s coverage. Because We Want to went straight in at number one as a brand new entry. It stayed at number one for one week. In its first and only week atop the charts, it sold 80,000 copies beating competition from Legacy by Manson. When it was knocked off the top of the charts, because we want to, fell two places to number three. By the time it was done on the charts, it had been inside the top 104. 14 weeks.

The song is currently officially certified silver in the UK as a 2026. Andy, Billy, Go. I feel like someone said those words to Russell T. Davies, Billy Go, because here he is 20 years later, and who's currently in that TARDIS, but none other than Billy Piper.

Spoilers? Well, it's been a year. The only reason they did it was so that everybody could hear about it and get bums on seat, so I think I'm doing Russell a favour by doing that. Yeah, I'm not sure it meant anything at the time, really. But, bizarre enough, I've just realised that was with both of you Yes, I remember. Yeah. Yeah.

And my reaction to that, which was a sort of primal yell, I think indicates, as I've said before, when we've covered Billy Piper, what a ridiculously massive deal she is to kids of a certain age who are nerds. And it is always hard for me to remember when she was just another pop star. Because to me she kind of was just another pop star, to be honest. Like, I liked this at the time.

And I really liked Honey to the B. But I wouldn't really have said she was ever anywhere in my, like, top five or ten pop stars. Not really. And I don't think I ever really knew her. She just had some songs that I liked. And so what she became afterwards were, although Rose is not like my very favorite Doctor Who companion, she is like an unbelievably huge icon of the new series of Doctor Who, arguably of sci-fi itself in the 21st century. And I think, arguably an even bigger deal than Christopher Eccleston was in that first series of Doctor Who.

So, like, she casts such a long shadow in her acting career since that it's so, so weird to come back to this. And you know who hates bringing this up, Billy Piper. She absolutely hates hearing about this. It was really funny once that there used to be a tie-in show to Doctor Who called Totally Doctor Who, which was on CBC, where, like, kids would come on. It was like Blue Peter, but just about Doctor Who. And kids would come on and talk to some of the cast, and there was an episode where, Billy Piper was on, and they got a kid fan on, and the very first thing they did, rather than saying, oh, it's Rose.

They just went, because we want to, because we want to. And Billy Piper sort of pulled this face, like, right, okay. Like, I've done this award-winning role. I'm trying to launch myself as a serious actress. Here we are. But anyway, yeah, so, I mean, when it comes down to this, I think the thing that I love about it is that incredibly bratish quality that, you know, I mean, say things like this, like not just spoken word, but in a deliberately kind of obnoxious way.

Like, people who think Brat Summer was some revolutionary thing, have a listen to this. You want to hear some really braty music? This? It's like, it's not just like the tone of voice, but it's the things that she's saying as well. It's like she's characterising people who are older and boring in the first line. And then the response is her. Why do you have to do this? Because we want to.

It's like it's separating the world into the cool kids and the not cool kids line by line. And I love that. I think that's a really great idea. It's just unfortunately, there's just not a whole lot to it musically. Like it really depends on that central idea of like just getting kids to go, because we want to. And we did all do that at the time. I do remember that whenever my mom was like, why are you doing that? I'd be like, because I want to, because I want to.

She must have loved that and somehow I not realized if someone was gay. She must have loved that. But, like, we did it in school as well, I remember. Like, it was quite a popular thing to do that, like, when someone was telling you, I feel like, because we want to. And, like, that is such a powerful central idea. It's such a good idea.

And she really nails, I'd like to say, that tone of voice, that, like, not exactly chavy and not exactly, like, unlikable, just a kind of sickly sweet, like, oh, what am I like? You know, kind of where you can just sort of wink and flush your eyelashes and get away with it. She's always been very good. As an actress, she's very good at that to me in her as well, where she's like a bit cheeky,

but in a way that's not unlikable. I think, yeah, really hits the nail on the head. It's the right song for her. But, I mean, there's just nothing going on in those verses. It feels like it's from a completely different song. She's not the strongest singer. She was right to move out of music and into acting, because she's not the strongest singer, to be honest.

But the vibes of this are lovely. I just don't think it ever moves into being anything special. So, yeah, I do like this, and it was really nice to hear it again, because I never listened to this. It was nice to hear it again. But it's not aged that well. It's very typical blow your bubble gum in someone's face. I'm a naughty kid from the 90s, and that's really nice to hear.

But it's not much more than that, really. Ed, why you've got to give your analysis right now? Because I want you to, and the show's schedule demands it. That was just as brattie and obnoxious as Billy. That was amazing, Rob. Yeah, I agree. Ed, how are we feeling? you, Rob. I really needed that vote of confidence because honestly, I felt, I felt so low all of a sudden.

I was actually just going to do an Irish goodbye and just leave the podcast without saying anything. But since you ask so kindly, I will tell you what I think about this. Kind of take what I said about Bewitched and multiply it a bit. Because it's like that walked a kind of dodgy tightrope walk between kindergarten fun and sort of cougar-esque sexual dominance in a way that didn't really quite click. But here it's like, right, in these eight bars, I want you to sound like a seven-year-old at a birthday party, dancing around, you've got too excited.

In these six, you'll be like Madonna in Frozen, right? And in these four, just as this bridge, you want you to lower your voice, and we want you to sound like Anita Baker, remembering the touch of tender lovers past. And then you go back to, because we want to, because we want to.

And then the rest will just fill it full of like hip-hop signifying noises from our BBC hip-hop signifying noises album, Volume 1. Why do they still keep using that? Because they want to, I presume. But yeah, it's a complete fucking mess, this, actually, in terms of tone and possibly composition. I can't quite tell because it just seems to be assemblage. But what I will say is this. It really does work. It really is one of the most memorable

singles of the era. In many ways, this and bewitched, they are, they are deities of catchiness. But if you look very closely, they're utterly bonkers and it's not tremendously surprising. They didn't have huge careers or don't quite have the residence that the likes of the Spice Girls and even all saints have these days. I hate to fall back on the same examples, but they're right bloody there. That's basically it. It's likable, but it is, it's a mess, really. But what I'll say is this, I don't hate this, and I thought I would, because that

bloody hook has been in my head on rotation in some awful tired back room for the last, God, 30 years now. and how much I hated this at the time and in many ways I can see why I hated it at the time was very, very pleasingly informed how pleasantly surprised I and I think everyone was that she got announced for Doctor Who

and everyone was like, Billy, Billy. I was already a Doctor Who fan at this point. It was like fucking Billy Piper. This is going to suck ass, honestly. and then the main I didn't watch much of the first series but the main conversation around it that everyone had was like

yeah Billy's in it and she's she's not shit is she I mean she's I mean that was the first stage people reached but now it's like she's amazing in that first season in particular

she's amazing that's the thing I mean she got better and better and I think the most striking thing that really nailed that opinion in for me was seeing it a round the same time as the first couple of seasons of Doctor Who, she was in like an adaptation of,

was it much ado about nothing or something? Oh, yeah, that brings a bell. Yeah. I was like, bloody hell. She kept doing these like, you know, period drama pieces. It's like, oh my God. She's like holding her head up, acting-wise, against, you know, proper established thespes.

And I was like, and honestly, it's like, yes, I don't think she was handed Doctor Who because of her pop career. I think she rose to it. Hey Why'd you have to do that, poor Ned? Because I I thought it was the appropriate time Anyway, that's all I've really got to say on that

mixed feelings But I don't hate it Yeah, this, I was surprised at how much I ended up writing about this This, just to begin, like this pitches itself I think, a slightly older audience than the one Bewitched were seeking out In my opinion on Tel Avie

Only slightly older though Like where Bewitched were 19 year olds pretending to be 15 year olds so they could speak to nine year olds. Billy Piper is a 15 year old pretending to be an 18 year old so she can speak to 13 year olds. Like this is bratti and rebellious in a way that a 9 year old would never dare to be but a 13 year old can't wait to be and can't resist being. I think when you're about 12 you can't wait to be 13 or maybe 15 because you slowly work out that that's the age when you can start talking back to your parents.

and the world suddenly becomes yours. You can play that song so loud. You can run around in crowds. You can dance all night. You can say what's on your mind. You're pissing everyone off. Adults are rolling their eyes at you, but you don't notice or care.

It's about the small feelings that feel absolutely huge when you're a kid. In that weird phase, where you can dress yourself now and feed yourself now and entertain yourself now, but you're still under your parents' control. You go from relying on them for absolutely everything, everything to feeling like you don't have to rely on them at all, even when you still do.

You realize that they still control you in some ways, even though you don't need them to. And so that's what you push against for like another six years until you're about 18 and you move out for university or work. I think in the end, this song is about that liberating feeling of being given your own front door key on your 12th birthday. All it screams to you are possibilities, like you can leave the house whenever you want. You can go wherever you want. You feel entrusted with something important that is literally a key to the outside world.

But silently, something you don't realize is that it's given to you with the implication that, A, you are now responsible for that door being locked, and B, you are always going to return back to under your parents' roof. And that's what this song is blissfully ignorant of. That's what Teen Rebellion actually is. sense of total freedom while only getting about 30% of it. Don't try to tell me what I already know. Don't criticize me because I'm running the show. Some revolution is going to happen today. Listening to that first first makes me think of fucking Stalin or like Mount Sedong.

I've sent something to you all in the chat this week. That edit of the film Barry Lyndon set to the song A Lot by 21 Savage. And it's just clips from Barry Lyndon being played over lines like, how much money you got a lot how many problems you got a lot how many people don't dad did you a lot left you out of rat a lot and it's like you could play this song

because we want to overfooted of Chairman Mao doing things I'm sure like why you gotta play that song so loud just at him at a concert why you always run around in crowds just love have like the army goose stepping around him you know it's just

you could modernize it for Putin yeah you definitely could I just wish it didn't sound so fucking cheap. You know, this sounds like actually the kind of music that the enemy pop group makes in Disney Channel films or films about music for kids. Like the enemy team in School of Rock make music that sounds like this. The enemy team in Camp Rock makes music that sounds like this. The enemy team in the Cheetah Girls makes music that sounds like this. The enemy team in high school musical and pitch perfect. They all make music like this. The School of

Rock, Camp Rock, High School Musical, Pitch Perfect. The Perfect Crew and the Cheater Girls and all of them, they're all about music and heartfelt lyrics and authenticity. But the enemy, all those groups all make the cheap plastic stuff and they cheat and they lie. And you think, oh no, they're going to win. The enemy team are going to win. With their more interesting memorable song, they're going to do it. But then their cheap plastic cheating is exposed and everyone goes home happy. And yeah, this is Disney Channel original movie antagonist music.

It is made to be thrown away in 14 weeks. I don't know whether it's correlation or causation, but we are at the peak of the CD era here, and I think they've perfected the formula for how you can get pre-teens to get mum and dad to buy little CD singles off the shelf in Woolworths and then keep buying more and more CD singles off the shelf in Woolworths. It's about making stuff that sounds kind of production line,

like it's a series of teenage artists walking into the same studio, to make pop, steered by the same engineers and producers, and they need about 10 of these each year. And you can only ensure space for the next one if you've made these preteens, forget about what they bought three weeks ago. And it kind of fits the bill there.

It doesn't feel evil in the way that Boyzone do, because I think with Boyzone, they had the temerity to pretend that they were better than that, more sophisticated and aim for a more grown-up market while doing the same thing. At least the machine going on around Billy seemed to acknowledge that kids' interest, are constantly shifting and sort of ephemeral

as we stand on the edge of the information age. It spotted market potential in hyperactive children with shortening attention spans and just went after it. The late 90s and early 2000s are defined by this kind of sound to a ridiculous extent, but at least they made bright, peppy pop while they went about it. Because, yeah, why do you have to play that song so loud?

Because we want to has also reverberated around in my head. I think honey to the bee was the, like, so Demon Days was the first album I ever bought with my own money. I'm pretty sure that Honey to the Bee was the first album that was ever bought for me. This and Bewitched first album. Those two were the two that I had on repeat. There is video I need to find, I think, for when we cover Roller Coaster of me and two or three of my cousins doing... Do you remember the pose from the video with the one at the front kind of crouched on the floor?

and then the one above her kind of like slightly taller until the fourth one at the back was stood up and it looked like they were on like a bobsled roller coaster sort of thing there's footage of me doing that in in 1998 and I need to find it but yeah Billy Piper and Bewitched

were my world when I was four years old coming back I'm so glad this week that I don't hate any of them and that actually three lions 98 is my least favorite song of the week quite comfortably actually. I love that you think we'd remember the video to

roller coaster. That's not a normal thing for people to remember. Yeah, I guess not. I guess, yeah, that video meant a lot to me when I was four. I'll need to find that footage. I got all my family tapes converted to digital a couple

years ago from my mum's Christmas present. It's three years ago actually, nearly. It's Christmas 2023. And so I'll need to find the videos because I saved them all on my laptop. So they'll be there. somewhere, but I'll dig it up and stick it on the Twitter feed or something for when we do roller coaster. But you know what's

lovely, a lovely little coincidence that we've talked about before, that my favourite early childhood memory music video was a different roller coaster. It was Fairground by Simply Redd. God, what is it about children and roller coasters? And I don't even like roller coasters. They frighten me.

And famously, Ed's favorite song of all time is Life is a roller coaster by Ronan Keithin. I thought that was your favorite song, Andy. Come on, let's not say things we can't take back. I mean, the thing is, you joke, and while it is not an all-timer for me, it's not even really a timer. I probably would have been the only person defending that song on the show. When you get into Ronan Keating solo territory, like, I think my brain just starts to sort of drool a little bit, and I'm like, oh, no, this is quite pleasant, actually.

Notting. Notting Hill. Hill and its celebration of multiculturalism. Anyway, let's not go there again. Anyway, sorry for sneaking Ronan into this podcast where he's not wanted. He'll be sneaking into a few episodes in the next couple of years, so yeah.

One, doodoo do-da-do-do-da-d-d-d-d-d-d-d- anyway. So, Andy, bewitched, Bedil and Skinner and Billy Piper. Ooh, illiterative artist, everyone, this week. Can't believe I didn't notice that. How are we feeling about those three? Well, I guess you can say that the rewards they got for getting to number one was honey to the bees. Good night, folks. That's all folks.

No, we need to find out. We need to find out the following final stuff. Okay, so Bewitch. I mean, you know, I bet they were hoping that I was going to put them into the vault, but that's life. No, actually, I am putting them into the vault. I am putting them into the vault. I just want to do that joke. That's going to go into the vault. That was built up beautifully over the course of a podcast. I'm about to the master.

And I've only decided to do so while we've been talking. It's just sneaking into the vault. Three Lions, well, it's not coming home if home is out of the pie hole or the vault. It's staying where it is. And, hmm, why do I have to leave that song where it is? Because I want to. Because I want to. Thanks, Billy.

Ed. Selaby, three lines 98, because we want to. Hey there, up in your vault. I'm not quite there. It's not your fault. I can take off my pants. They're plastic. So let's river dance.

Yeah, it's not quite there. It's so charming. But there's so much about it that is just wrong. It didn't get it. They didn't get it quite. Right, right. Would you say, Miverton, instead? They are flatly adjacent, aren't they?

They're not so closely that to that. Two planes are flatly adjacent to each other. It can be slow or fast. I don't give a shit. Three lions has grown into its own beast, and I, as I said earlier, I kind of only tentatively understood it in the beginning. It can sit over there.

I'd rather have sea lions on my shirt. I think I've already made that joke once. It can sit over there where it can't. Hit you or hurt you, defend or attack. Seriously, though, sea lions, I should say this, sea lions are underrated. I've been watching a lot of TikTok videos of stolen content, which have the same five clips of sea lions being cute. Seals, yeah, they're super cute.

You've got to love a seal. But sea lions have this thing where I think they know they're funny. I think they know it. There is no survival imperative to some of the things they do. they are funny fuckers, them sea lions. Anyway, yeah, oh yeah, there was one more song. Yeah, I wasn't aware that we could vault animals, because that would change my scores.

Can I vote a sea lion instead of three lions? Well, that confused things madly. Anyway, it is quite impressive in terms of, because we want to, that an UK number one single is not actually the peak of an artist's fame, and it's not actually the peak of her ability. I think we've established either. It's not actually embarrassing either. It's just a bit of a mess

and a sort of a bit of a conglomeration rather than an effective song that you actually should be listening to as closely as we have. So yeah, it's just three that are kind of sitting there. Some are better than others. Anyway, Rob, you can, you may continue, you have my blessing.

Thank you very much. Yeah, none of them are going anywhere, so I didn't even really need to speak. Oh, that was quick. Yeah. We will be back next time continuing our journey through 1998, and we're almost at the end of it, which I can't believe. But we will see you for it by bye now. Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.