Ages ago on the lamented MP3 blog POPNOSE I wrote about how soca’s greatness lay – partly – in how omnivorous it is, subject-wise. Like the calypso it sprang from, anything from arthritis to trade policies makes fine raw material for soca acts. So when I read that somebody had written and recorded – in three days – a song about the World Cup Final and Zidane’s headbutt, I shouldn’t have been surprised to download it and hear soca rhythms.*
“Couple De Boule” – hear it on La Plage’s website – is super timely and it’s also infectious pop. I don’t speak French well; as far as I can tell, the chorus runs something like “The Italian gives it some / Zidane nuts him”. If that was all there was to it, it would be a fun novelty – the factor that transforms it into an actually great football record is how La Plage can’t forget that there was a match around the headbutt, and that the outcome – from their point of view – hurt. The song ends with no mention of Zidane, just a despair-filled “Trezeguet, Trezeguet, Trezeguet” – which needs no translation.
*of course the whole system of riddims and versions makes this kind of rapid-response pop more possible.