Football fever has hit the UK, with chants of 'Football's Coming Home' heard coming out of every pub garden, living room and village hall across England. But it's not just diehard football fans who are singing along to David Baddiel and Frank Skinner's 1996 hit. In the last few days, we've seen organists, cathedral choirs and even the Band of the Coldstream Guards playing their own arrangements of the now legendary song. Today, there's been another addition to the line-up.
The Ashatones, a London-based barbershop quartet, released their own short arrangement of 'Three Lions: Football's Coming Home' in tribute to the England v Italy final of the 2020 Euros, taking place tomorrow at Wembley Stadium in London.
The quartet filmed their performance on the fly, just ten minutes before they took to the stage for an unrelated performance in London last night. The video shared on the quartet's Instagram account is an extract from a longer arrangement by Harry Styles, a member of the quartet.
'We wanted to make sure the barbershop style was maintained, so the melody is locked into the middle of the harmonic layering,' says Style. 'Everyone sings the words together and then we end with a traditional barbershop tag, where the lead holds a long note while the other parts elaborate on elements from the rest of the song.'
It's not the first time the Ashatones have turned their hand to an untraditional barbershop tune, having previously performed arrangements of songs by Lizzo, Stevie Wonder, Green Day and Carole King. The quartet's members – Sam McCagherty, Harry Style, Alex Weston and Ashley Jacobs – have been singing together since they met at the University of Leeds in 2012.
We named their rendition as one of the best arrangements of 'Three Lions: Football's Coming Home' ahead of the Euros 2020 Final.
