Jim Noir – 'Eany Meany' (My Dad) Released 03/07/06)

Ah... summer has arrived, pubs are rammed with grown men displaying uncomfortable amounts of affection toward each other, tabloids have become obsessed with the shopping habits of a bunch of pretty halfwits and the most important person in Britain is a pug-faced granny shagger from Liverpool. Yes, the World Cup has arrived, and on the back of it comes advertising footy-porn galore, courtesy of every single manufacturer of tat this side of Japan. 
 
But, buried behind one of the best, Adidas’ new advert - in which a suspiciously poverty-stricken little boy has a kickabout with a bunch of famous footballers is Jim Noir’s 'Eany Meany', a waltzing little nursery rhyme of a song about destroying his neighbour’s gnomes with a football, then threatening to tell his dad on them. Sounding like Eels at their most poppy, Noir’s single, from the debut album ‘My Patch’ which garnered rave reviews around Christmas, is quirky, funny, and absolutely lovely. Built around the refrain “If you don’t give my football back/ I’m going to get my Dad on you,” this was apparently Jim’s first attempt at writing a song. “I looked out of me bedroom window at the garden I used to kick me football around in,” the bowler-hatted minstrel scampishly intones, presumably after being sent there for not finishing his greens, “and it just came out.” And, while this might have Radiohead fans choking on their cornflakes, they might want to take note: Eany Meany, despite having a chorus that a five year old could write is a cracking pop song that’ll have you singing along to all through summer. Much easier to chant on the terraces than Embrace’s World at Your Feet monstrosity, Eany Meany is the rightful heir to 3 Lion’s crown of ‘best unofficial England song ever.’