The End of Summer
How an 80s Italian disco song and its adaptation transformed my year
2018 started as an odd sort of year, the kind that you don’t expect to look back on fondly. A major personal setback was accompanied by a feeling of struggle professionally— I was effectively in a midlife crisis before I was old enough to have one.
Those who know me know that I’m a huge football fan — an ardent supporter of Liverpool and Leeds United, neither of whom had the greatest time until then that decade. Following Liverpool’s first season back in the Champions League was not exactly expected to alleviate my mood, given the extremely low expectations I, and most others, had of the team given their struggles over the previous eight to ten years.
The team qualified from their group quite handily, and played the Portuguese team Porto next — a crushing 5–0 win led to new optimism and belief. That game will be remembered for a few great goals, but even more so for the chant that began, albeit stumblingly, among the traveling Liverpool fans in that game. Within a few hours, clips (shakily filmed on mobile phones) of the chanting fans were flying across the internet, and in a few days it seemed like the song was everywhere.
The chant, Allez Allez Allez!, was a joyous, bouncy expression of optimism that transformed my year — but where had it come from?
One day, suddenly…
The chant’s origin lies in L’Estate Sta Finendo, a somewhat obscure Italo Disco song from the 80s duo Righeira. The song topped the charts in Italy for a few weeks in 1985, and was one of the most popular songs of the summer, but barely made any headway in any other country.
The song itself, despite its extremely upbeat tune and tempo, is fundamentally a sad song. The first verse translates to -
The summer is ending,
And a year is going away.
I’m growing up,
You know I don’t want to.
Despite the music seemingly becoming more upbeat as the song goes along, the melancholic undertone remains, and the lyrics themselves continue to become sadder as the narrator wistfully muses about the passage of time, and recalls memories of people he may never see again, as well as empty beaches that signify the end of the summer and highlight his loneliness.
A photo is all I have,
But be sure I won’t forget you.
This melancholic song was adopted first by several Italian football clubs, with adapted lyrics, before reaching Portugal, Spain, Scotland, and Germany, and then finally making its way to England. Liverpool fans (led by musician Jamie Webster) created their own version, retaining the upbeat tune and changing the lyrics to reflect an optimism built on glories of the past.
We’ve conquered all of Europe,
We’re never going to stop.
From Paris down to Turkey,
We’ve won the f — lot.
Bob Paisley and Bill Shankly,
The Fields of Anfield Road.
We are loyal supporters,
And we come from Liverpool.
Right from its early performances, the song showed its ability to make the crowd bounce in shared optimism and enthusiasm, and carry everyone along under the relentless momentum of its tune and positivity.
The song rapidly became the soundtrack to Liverpool’s performances that season in Europe — the team played aggressive, front-foot football, and played without fear. Despite their underdog status, the season was transformed — five goals against the best team in England, seven against one of the best in Italy, and a relentless, rampant run to the final. Suddenly anything seemed to be possible, and the summer was now one of optimism — for the traveling fans who had scarves aflutter at every game, for the players on the pitch spurred on with seemingly infinite energy — and for me.
Bookends
Together, the original Righeira version and the adapted Liverpool fans’ version became the soundtrack of my summer, and even changed the course of my year. The individual resonance of the original lyrics was matched by the communal resonance of the adapted version — the former talks of an individual being alone and slowed down by their memories, but the latter talks of us, a group, marching on together. The versions showcase a transformation from a melancholic look back at the past through teary eyes, to a positive recollection that sets the happy memories of the past as a stepping stone to new successes in the future — a transformation reflected in my spring and summer.
Setbacks and struggles were viewed through a new prism — the sad memories from the recent past replaced by happier ones from before, and hopefully as a precursor to even happier ones after. Memories and photographs would remain without fading, but new memories would be added to the collection. Just like it seemed like no opponent was impossible to defeat for this Liverpool team, all challenges seemed like they could be faced head-on, and overcome — it was now a time of confidence.
That Porto game was just another match, and the chant was just another of several football chants — but the depth of emotion and history behind those two songs, and the moment in time they caught me at made them almost life-changing.
The summer may have ended, but the transformation it brought about remained. What a time it was, oh what a time it was.
Note: To paraphrase Righeira, the photos and crosswords from 2017–18 will remain without fading. As will the footballing memories from that year and the next few — as Jamie Webster says in the final video, “Jurgen, thanks very much — we owe you a lot.”
