Theme From Sparta F.C.
Lyrics
Come on I will show you how I will change
When you give me something to slaughter
Shepherd boy (Hey!)
Everybody sing (Hey!)
Better act quick (Hey!)
Be my toy
Come on have a bet
We live on blood
We are Sparta F.C.
[Phonetic Transcription of vocal by Eleni]:
Ella Na Soo Thixo
Poso tha alaxo
Otan tha moo thosis
Kati na sfaxo
Ella valeh stihima
Yia na kerthiso
Afto then ineh pimma
Yia ta skoopithia. (2)
I don't have a jack knife it went up the hill
I don't know if i'll get it back
But by hook or by crook I will (3)
Hey! Hey!
Be my toy
Come on have a bet
We live on blood
We are Sparta F.C.
Hey! Hey!
We have to pay for everything (Hey!)
But some things are for free (Hey!)
We live on blood (Hey!)
We are Sparta F.C. (Hey!)
English Chelsea fan this is your last game (Hey!)
We're not Galatasaray, we're Sparta F.C. (Hey!) (4)
[background vocal by Elena]
And take your fleecy jumper you won't need it anymore (5)
It is in the car boot moving away
'Cause where you are going clothes won't help
Stay at home with TV set
Be my toy
Come on have a bet
We live on blood
We are Sparta F.C.
Cheap English man in the paper shop
You mug old women in your bobble hat (6)
Better go spot a place to rest
No more ground boutique at match in Chelsea (7)
We are Sparta F.C.
Come on have a bet
We live on blood
We are Sparta F.C.
Hey! Hey!
Shepherd boy (Hey!)
Everybody sing (Hey!)
Better act quick (Hey!)
Be my toy (Hey!)
Come on have a bet (Hey!)
So I can win (Hey!)
This is not a poem (Hey!)
For the bin (Hey!)
I don't have a jack knife (Hey!)
It went up the hill (Hey!)
I don't know if I'll get it back (Hey!)
By hook or crook I will (Hey!)
English Chelsea fan (Hey!)
This is your last game (Hey!)
We're not Galatasary (Hey!)
We're Sparta F.C. (Hey!)
Sparta!
Notes
1. From Tim Cummings' interview with MES, Malmaison Hotel bar, Manchester, 14 May 2004 (from Dan):
TC: Can you remember how a song like Sparta come about? It’s a really great track.
MES: Everybody likes it, yeah. The group made this song that was sort of like Born to Be Wild, I thought, with a great feel to it. And Elena came up with some great words and I added some words I thought were like the Greek football fan’s attitude, you know. I do know quite a few Greek football fans, and their attitude to soccer is completely different to Britain. Sort of cobbled it all together, put a Greek motif on the guitar and that was it.
TC: The lyrics seem to be a springboard for whatever interpretation you want to put on it.
MES: Right. The thing is, their mental attitude is quite strange. It’s not about winning or anything. It’s just about being within the club. They find British fans very funny. They find them hilarious. You know, when they cry. You see it now, you know. They cry when they don’t win, and all that.
MES is brilliant on this one, sounding like a deranged and drunken foreigner with a less-then-perfect grasp of English (see note 3 below); while MES doesn't exactly put an accent on, he manages to hint at one, pulling up short, however, of turning the song into a novelty number. Like every other Fall anthem, it refuses to allow the listener to fully identify with the narrator, but in the case of this one it's easy to forget that while the compellingly energetic music is playing.
The modern-day municipality of Sparta (or Sparti) occupies the site of the famed ancient Greek polis of that name. There are three football clubs in Laconia, the region that contains Sparta, but none of them are in Sparta. There is a Czech and a Norwegian football club with Sparta in the name, but, as MES indicates above that the song is about Greek football fans, clearly Sparta F.C. is fictional.
Clay suggests a connection to Blue Oyster Cult, saying Sparta is "a riff, thematically, on their song 'Transmaniacon MC.' Apart from the titles being very similar, they're both fight songs for fictional violent gangs, and both allude to real-life stabbings at mass events (Altamont in the BOC song)." He points out a similarity in the riffs, and indeed Sparta could have been written off the BOC song, although neither is it clear that it was. I leave it to the reader to decide...
The Fall recorded a few versions of this, starting with a Peel session and then putting it on the leaked-but-not-released Ur-text Country on the Click, but the Real New Fall L.P. rendition is the one they got perfect; MES manages to pour all his slurry decadence into an even more slurry and decadent character, and the band rises to the occasion by doing just enough and not trying to do too much.
2. These transcribed lyrics come from the Lyrics Parade, which also helpfully includes a translation:
Come and I will show you
How I will change
When you give me
Something to slaughter
Come and have a bet
So I can win
This is not a poem
For the bin.
I can't vouch for the translation or even the transcription (if the same Greek speaker who translated it transcribed it, that would inspire confidence, but I have no idea if this is the case). The above lyrics all appear in English in the song, however, which bodes well for their veracity.
3. The lyrics (which perhaps allude to Jack and Jill, as Graving points out in the notes) verge on rambling nonsense here; this could be an indication of the drunkenness and the less than perfect command of English of the narrator. Of course, MES has never shied away from rambling nonsense himself, but the nonsense here seems to belong to the character more so than the lyricist. His speech is mostly correct, if sometimes unconcerned with the definite article ("No more ground boutique at match in Chelsea"), but just skewed enough to give one a sense that English is not his native tongue, and his reasoning is filled with contradictions: along with "I don't know if I'll get it back/But by hook or crook I will," we hear "You have to pay for everything but some things are for free," and the hilariously garbled "Take your fleecy jumper, you won't need it anymore/It is in the car boot moving away/'Cause where you're going, clothes won't help/ Stay at home with TV set."
4. Galatasaray S.K. is a Turkish football club and would presumably be hated by the Greek hoodlum narrating the song. According to blazenstruik:
MES references Galatasaray, specifically, for a reason - going there in the 1990s was not a pleasant experience. I think this song was written shortly after a Leeds fan was stabbed to death before a match there. Manchester United had some interesting games against Galatasaray at the time too.
5. Mamnesiac points out a punning sheep/shepherd theme--by hook or (shepherd's) crook, something to slaughter (livestock), and "fleecy jumper," which could mean a fleece sweater but also could be taken to refer to a sheep. And, on the Peel session we get "I got golden locks/I gotta get cropped" which, admittedly with a little stretching, could perhaps be taken to allude to the golden fleece pursued by Jason and the Argonauts in a typically convoluted Greek myth. I am proposing this as a kind of echoing or subtle reinforcement of a hidden metaphorical theme; I'm not suggesting that the primary reference of these lines is to sheep.
But Matt Cox brings us back to earth with a more likely interpretation:
The line about not needing a fleecy jumper/clothes not helping may be a reference to football casual culture and the popularity of designer clothes amongst English football hooligans, i.e. what you're wearing will make no difference when up against the might of Sparta.
6. Paper shop=newsagent or newsstand. The bobble hat, a knit cap or tuque with a fuzzy ball on top, is a favored accessory with older English football fans, if Wikipedia is to be believed.
7. Blazenstruik addresses the alleged foofiness of Chelsea:
Chelsea - this was the era when Ken Bates owned the club, and was making determined efforts to attract more upmarket, middle-class fans (thus "ground boutiques" and "where you are going clothes won't count"). Presumably this did not go down too well with MES, although ironically Bates as a character has much in common with MES.
More Information
Comments (66)
- 1. | 02/10/2013
- 2. | 27/06/2014
- 3. | 27/06/2014
- 4. | 12/01/2015
- 5. | 31/01/2015
- 6. | 06/02/2015
Two Leeds fans were stabbed to death by Galatasaray fans in April 2000 during the UEFA cup competition that year, which took place in Turkey. Galatasaray are based in Istanbul, which is also where the stabbings took place. Galatasaray is not really a place like Leeds is a place. Maybe at most it represents a district of Istanbul.
Anyway, the song is perhaps therefore a bit less topical than blazenstruik is suggesting. But it's a name that has a resonance, so maybe it was used because of that.
- 7. | 22/02/2016
- 8. | 02/03/2016
Number Six: Whose side are you on?
Number Two: That would be telling. We want information… information… information.
Number Six: You won't get it.
Number Two: By hook or by crook, we will.
Clip here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zalndXdxriI
He's referenced the program on a few occasions, including one of those early letters to Tony Friel typed on the back of a shipping form.
Additionally, other introductions to The Prisoner include the lines "The mountain will come to Mohammed," "Everest, I presume" and "I've never had a head for heights" - relating to "It went up the hill" perhaps?
- 9. | 19/03/2016
- 10. | 07/11/2016
It's not that rare a phrase, no, although given the context I think The Prisoner theory is not implausible. Antoine cites other lines which seem way less plausible to me.
- 11. | 22/01/2017
1. Peel Session version
2. Country on the Click version - more electronic; swirly synths - also used in the official music video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQ-lsCkvbOs).
3. UK album version - somewhat less electronic, with different lyrics chanted at the end.
4. US album/single version ("Theme from Sparta F.C. #2") - completely re-recorded; more rockin'.
5. Interim version ("Sparta FC No. 3") - a rough & tumble rehearsal or live recording.
- 12. | 14/04/2017
Part of me wants to see this as an allusion to the Golden Fleece in the Jason and the Argonauts myth.
- 13. | 13/05/2017
- 14. | 11/02/2018
- 15. | 17/02/2018
- 16. | 17/02/2018
- 17. | 26/10/2018
- 18. | 15/11/2018
- 19. | 29/11/2018
- 20. | 30/11/2018
- 21. | 30/11/2018
The members of the Sparta clan referring to themselves as 'we' 'my' 'I'... then MES addresses them as 'you' or 'your'. the last verse mixes the two for a final chant.
- 22. | 30/11/2018
- 23. | 30/11/2018
- 24. | 01/12/2018
- 25. | 02/12/2018
Mark:
English Chelsea fan this is your last game.
And take your fleecy ... TV set
Cheap English verse ... (to next) chelsea
The rest 'sparta'.
- 26. | 03/12/2018
- 27. | 03/12/2018
- 28. | 23/11/2019
- 29. | 27/11/2019
- 30. | 22/02/2020
- 31. | 24/04/2020
TC: Can you remember how a song like Sparta come about? It’s a really great track.
MES: Everybody likes it, yeah. The group made this song that was sort of like Born to Be Wild, I thought, with a great feel to it. And Elena came up with some great words and I added some words I thought were like the Greek football fan’s attitude, you know. I do know quite a few Greek football fans, and their attitude to soccer is completely different to Britain. Sort of cobbled it all together, put a Greek motif on the guitar and that was it.
TC: The lyrics seem to be a springboard form whatever interpretation you want to put on it.
MES: Right. The thing is, their mental attitude is quite strange. It’s not about winning or anything. It’s just about being within the club. They find British fans very funny. They find them hilarious. You know, when they cry. You see it now, you know. They cry when they don’t win, and all that.
[Archive]
- 32. | 02/05/2020
- 33. | 02/05/2020
- 34. | 02/05/2020
- 35. | 22/05/2020
With Satan's hog no pig at all
And the weather's getting dry
We'll head south from Altamont
In a cold-blood traveled trance
So clear the road, my bully boys
And let some thunder pass
We're pain, we're steel, a plot of knives
We're Transmaniacon MC
Behind the pantry, behind the tree
The ghouls adopt that child
Whose name resound forever
Whose name resounds in terror
And I'm no fool to call that hog
'Cause man, I remember
Those who did resign their souls
To Transmaniacon MC
And surely we did offer up
Behind that stage at dawn
Beers and barracuda, reds and monocaine, yeah
Pure nectar of antipathy
Behind that stage at dawn
To those who would resign their souls
To Transmaniacon MC
Cry the cable, cry the word
Unknown terror's here
And won't you try this tasty snack
Behind the scene or but the back
Which was the stage at Altamont
My humble boys of listless power
We're pain, we're steel, a plot of knives
We're Transmaniacon...
Look, all right! You can feel it!
- 36. | 22/05/2020
- 37. | 23/05/2020
... "Transmaniacon MC". Apart from the titles being very similar ...
The titles aren't really very similar, though, are they?
Granted they are both about fighting.
I'm not hearing much by way of musical similarity either, although that's not something I'm good at. I guess I can hear that they both have a descending kind of riff going on in parts?
- 38. | 14/06/2020
- 39. | 21/06/2020
https://twitter.com/Benpritchard6/status/1116343603088035840
I had about ten seconds to come up with that riff at the beginning of Sparta. I literally had Mark standing over me shouting‘I need something Greek come on get on with it’ he was good like that!
- 40. | 20/09/2020
For a boy to become a man. he had to kill as many state-owned slaves, undetected and return home.
- 41. | 02/10/2020
"Well, it's plain to see you were meant for me
I'm your boy, your 20th century toy."
A lesser connection in the same song, Marc Bolan also has a sheep thing going on!
"I move like a cat, charge like a ram."
- 42. | 03/10/2020
https://youtu.be/fXEZOggTXT0
Mark E Smith made no bones in his appreciation of their musical sensibility and it's surely within the realms of possibility that he proffered a tape to the group, saying that's the sound we're going for.
I like this version too for it's transition from glam to garage:
https://youtu.be/ZjaCyxnhLp8
- 43. | 03/10/2020
- 44. | 09/01/2021
42: also plausible, he has praised them, I think he said they were his first concert, if I remember right? and partly inspired the two-drummer trip?
43: Pritchard had his own thing, and played some powerful guitar in the Fall; I think people are just put off by his being a Tom Petty fan...
- 45. | 21/05/2021
It's just so catchy and we loved football. Mark also had a fascination with Ragazzi as he called them: the Italian hooligans, those kind of hard hooligans. We read the football magazine When Saturday Comes, and they had also brought out a book about Ragazzi. Mark put in the Greek fan idea of what you might call Greek supremacy. In a way Mark identified as more Greek than me! But it was also an anti-Chelsea song.
(p.99)
- 46. | 21/05/2021
"I wrote the lyrics in Greek," says Poulou. "And in Greek they are rhyming, but we sang them in English. Mark would add things like 'fleecy jumper'. That is definitely Mark."
(p.100)
- 47. | 20/07/2021
- 48. | 15/03/2022
It contains footage from the Jan Svankmajer short from 1988, called ‘Virile Games’, in which in acted footage an armchair football fan sets himself up in his studio flat cluttered with football mugs and posters, for watching a football match of his team. When the game starts, clay-mation is mixed in to convey the on-pitch action, which consists of a series of footballers meeting their on-pitch grizzly animated deaths.
The fan video itself is a really good pairing with the music, and Svankmajer’s original is great, and something one could well imagine MES being a fan of as it is. But added to this, any shots that linger on the armchair fan’s mugs and beer glasses reveal him to be a follower of a team with ‘Sparta’ in the name, with the star badge apparently the same as was found on official Fall merchandise saying ‘Sparta F.C.’…
Here’s a still from it showing such a cup:
- 49. | 15/03/2022
- 50. | 28/03/2022
What merchandise do you mean?
- 51. | 28/03/2022
Dan
- 52. | 28/03/2022
http://thefall.org/news/05feb25old.html
So within a year or two of the song first appearing on record.
- 53. | 07/04/2022
About the merchandise - unfortunately I never bought one, but I think there were t-shirts (possibly available through Action records) featuring the Sparta badge from the Svankmajer film. Following a fruitless web search I have only my memory to go by. I think they were light grey or white with a large badge of ‘F.C. Sparta’ in the middle. Will have another look for evidence that these existed…
- 54. | 07/04/2022
- 55. | 07/04/2022
- 56. | 08/04/2022
Action did do this (found on the FOF):
Note this from the Guardian, 2013:
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2013/feb/09/mo-farah-bradley-wiggins-chelsea
CHELSEA POP CROSSOVER …
As the Blues face Sparta Prague in the Europa League (Thursday, ESPN, 6pm). A potentially tough gig, with the Czech side unbeaten in their past five Europa home games but also immortalised by the mighty Fall's Theme From Sparta FC, in which Mark E Smith growls: "We live on blood/ We are Sparta FC/ English Chelsea fan this is your last game/ We're not Galatasaray, we're Sparta FC". The song topped John Peel's Festive 50 in 2004 and has been used, unsurprisingly in instrumental form, as the theme for the BBC's Final Score. Of course, given Smith's eclectic lyrics, it could be about Sparta Rotterdam, Luton's Brache Sparta or even the Spartans. Either way, Chelsea cop it: "Cheap English man in the paper shop/ You mug old women in your bobble hat/ Better go spot a place to rest/ No more ground boutique at match in Chelsea/ We are Sparta FC."
- 57. | 08/04/2022
Action did do this (found on the FOF):
Note this from the Guardian, 2013:
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2013/feb/09/mo-farah-bradley-wiggins-chelsea
CHELSEA POP CROSSOVER …
As the Blues face Sparta Prague in the Europa League (Thursday, ESPN, 6pm). A potentially tough gig, with the Czech side unbeaten in their past five Europa home games but also immortalised by the mighty Fall's Theme From Sparta FC, in which Mark E Smith growls: "We live on blood/ We are Sparta FC/ English Chelsea fan this is your last game/ We're not Galatasaray, we're Sparta FC". The song topped John Peel's Festive 50 in 2004 and has been used, unsurprisingly in instrumental form, as the theme for the BBC's Final Score. Of course, given Smith's eclectic lyrics, it could be about Sparta Rotterdam, Luton's Brache Sparta or even the Spartans. Either way, Chelsea cop it: "Cheap English man in the paper shop/ You mug old women in your bobble hat/ Better go spot a place to rest/ No more ground boutique at match in Chelsea/ We are Sparta FC."
- 58. | 08/04/2022
Action did do this (found on the FOF):
Note this from the Guardian, 2013:
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2013/feb/09/mo-farah-bradley-wiggins-chelsea
CHELSEA POP CROSSOVER …
As the Blues face Sparta Prague in the Europa League (Thursday, ESPN, 6pm). A potentially tough gig, with the Czech side unbeaten in their past five Europa home games but also immortalised by the mighty Fall's Theme From Sparta FC, in which Mark E Smith growls: "We live on blood/ We are Sparta FC/ English Chelsea fan this is your last game/ We're not Galatasaray, we're Sparta FC". The song topped John Peel's Festive 50 in 2004 and has been used, unsurprisingly in instrumental form, as the theme for the BBC's Final Score. Of course, given Smith's eclectic lyrics, it could be about Sparta Rotterdam, Luton's Brache Sparta or even the Spartans. Either way, Chelsea cop it: "Cheap English man in the paper shop/ You mug old women in your bobble hat/ Better go spot a place to rest/ No more ground boutique at match in Chelsea/ We are Sparta FC."
- 59. | 08/04/2022
- 60. | 08/04/2022
- 61. | 27/02/2023
- 62. | 05/09/2023
- 63. | 06/09/2023
See: https://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/by-hook-or-by-crook.html
- 64. | 26/01/2024
Grant 'Showbiz' Cunliffe: Theme From Sparta F.C. - I'm a Chelsea fan...
- 65. | 26/01/2024
Eleni Poulou: My lyrics were a bit harsh. We'd gone to Greece and Mark really loved Greece, maybe more than me, and he was a Greek football fan. I wrote a lyric to reflect their behaviour, but its all also a bit surrealistic. It's a bit like a myth, about going to another world. It's about human behaviour - it doesn't necessarily have to be football. It's really nice to write in Greek, it's a really beautiful language.
- 66. | 26/01/2024
Ben Pritchard: I was stood in the desk room at the studio and Mark says, I want something Greek. He did not give you any time to work it out, that riff at the start was the first thing I played.
It references Jack & Jill - an old English nursery rhyme