Friday 1 June 2012

Marching On Together

























Leeds! Leeds! Leeds! (commonly known as Marching On Together) is the name of the anthem of Leeds United A.F.C. Unlike many football songs that are just new words set to existing music, Leeds! Leeds! Leeds! is an original composition by Les Reed and Barry Mason. The song first appeared in 1972 as the B-side of the record released by Leeds United to coincide with the team reaching the 1972 FA Cup Final, the A-side being titled "Leeds United". The vocals on the original recording were sung by the then-members of the Leeds United team and their supporters. The record stayed in the UK Singles Chart for almost 3 months, peaking at number 10. The song is played just before kick-off at every home game at Elland Road and it is a ritual for every Leeds United fan to stand up and sing when it is played.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marching_On_Together



Here we go with Leeds United,
We're gonna give the boys a hand,
Stand up and sing for Leeds United,
They are the greatest in the land

na na na

Everyday, we're all gonna say,
We love you Leeds! Leeds! Leeds!
Everywhere, we're gonna be there,
We love you Leeds! Leeds! Leeds!

Marching On Together!
We're gonna see you win
na na na na na na
We are so proud,
We shout it out loud
We love you Leeds! Leeds! Leeds!

We've been through it all together,
And we've had our ups and downs (UPS AND DOWNS!)
We're gonna stay with you forever,
At least until the world stops going round

na na na

Everyday, we're all gonna say
We love you Leeds!Leeds!Leeds!
Everywhere, we're gonna be there,
We love you Leeds! Leeds! Leeds!

Marching On Together!
We're gonna see you win
na na na na na na
We are so proud,
We shout it out loud
We love you Leeds! Leeds! Leeds!
We are so proud,
We shout it out loud,
We love you LEEDS! LEEDS! LEEDS!



Few football teams can boast an original song as their anthem; fewer still can boast a song originally recorded by the team’s players; and I’m pretty sure only one team can boast an anthem written by the guy who wrote “It’s Not Unusual” for Tom Jones. That team is Leeds.
Marching on Together was released to commemorate Leeds’s 1972 FA Cup Final win over Arsenal. It was on the b-side of the album, accompanied on the a-side by a song simply called Leeds United. The latter is great fun, but it’s too specific to the 1970s squad to be popular nowadays (for lyrics, click here). Marching on Together is a different beast entirely. Fans usually only sing the chorus during a game, as the rest of the song is less widely known (and thus harder to get 20,000 people singing at once!). The original recording was performed by the actual players from the 1972 FA Cup Final, but sounds remarkably good considering none of them were singers.
The first video below is from the celebrations in Leeds after the team won the league title in 1992. There are better quality clips of Marching on Together out there, but none with such passion – there’s a man at 01:22 who looks on the verge of tears. The chorus, at 00:22, always brings back memories. God I miss going to Elland Road – I’ll probably end up blowing all my disposable income on match tickets when I move back to Yorkshire later this year, which can’t be good.
http://leeds.theoffside.com/leeds-united/team-history-tuesday-marching-on-together.html
 


My younger brother Nick with myself at Elland Road

I recently chatted to sock tag-inventing artist Paul Trevillion for The Square Ball magazine about how the anthemic sound of Leeds, Leeds, Leeds – to give the B-side to the top ten hit Leeds United its proper name – came into being. Days before Don Revie’s men beat Birmingham City in the 1972 FA Cup Semi Final, Trevillion takes up the tale. “I said to Don, ‘We’ll have to get a song. Is there anybody you’d like to sing it?’ He replied, ‘Yes, Tom Jones.’ I said, ‘We won’t get Tom Jones!’ ‘Get the guy who writes his songs then,’ he insisted. ‘The guy who wrote Delilah, The Last Waltz, come on!’ ‘That’s Les Reed and Barry Mason,’ I replied. ‘They don’t do football records, Don!’ ‘You want the boys to wear your stocking tags?’ he said, ‘But you’re telling me you can’t get him to do our record? Go get him.’ “So I found out where Les Reed lived and I went round. I got there at eight o’clock in the morning and rang the bell. Nothing happened. I waited another hour and I rang it again, and there was no answer. I kept pressing the bell, and in the end it was about one o’clock in the afternoon and he answered the door and said, ‘What do you want? I’ll give you just a minute, that’s all. 60 seconds.’ ‘I want you to do the Leeds United song,’ I said. He burst out laughing, saying ‘You’re kidding.’ ‘No,’ I insisted. ‘We’re gonna bring it out in time for the Cup Semi Final. Are you on?’ “He said ‘Come in. I’ll get Barry over.’ Barry Mason arrived and asked, ‘How do you want it?’ ‘There’s a number in Robin Hood with Errol Flynn,’ I told him. ‘It won an Oscar, it’s the greatest music I’ve ever heard. Can we have it like that?’ And Barry started banging on the table, saying ‘How about: Here we go with Leeds United! We love you Leeds! Leeds! Leeds!’ I said, ‘Get the beat from Robin Hood, get that sound!’ and they were on for it. “I couldn’t believe it, we got the record out for the Birmingham game. The bloody Birmingham game, the Semi Final, not for the Final! It got to number ten, for goodness sake! Above all the great stars who were around – the Elvis Presleys and the Tom Joneses and all of it – and it’s still a belter, and Leeds still do it.” http://www.thebeatengeneration.co.uk/tbg/index.php/2012/04/the-marching-on-together-story/
 



Leeds United Marching On Together Forum

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