"Vindaloo" is a song by British band Fat Les. The music was co-written by Blur bassist Alex James and bassist Guy Pratt. The lyrics were written by comedian Keith Allen. It was released as a single in 1998 and recorded for the 1998 FIFA World Cup. The song was originally written as a parody of football chants, but was adopted as one in its own right and became a cult classic. Much of the song consists of the phrase "nah nah nah" and the word "vindaloo" repeated over and over by a mixed group, occasionally interspersed with lines such as "And we all like vindaloo" and "We're England; we're gonna score one more than you". The song has brief verses, spoken/sung by Keith Allen over a marching snare drum beat. The song's name comes from the vindaloo, a type of very spicy Goan curry. It is often eaten by football supporters in the United Kingdom accompanied by large quantities of lager, after matches or as part of a "lads' night out". "Vindaloo" reached number two on the UK Singles Chart in June 1998; it was beaten by "3 Lions '98" by David Baddiel and Frank Skinner and Lightning Seeds, a re-release of football anthem "Three Lions" from 1996 with slightly altered lyrics.
Controversy
The song sounded a little too much like a "hooligan's anthem" for some observers, and from the point of view of the BBC the band were deliberately waking the ghost of an earlier racial incident on the BBC TV programmeThe Late Show. Guest Keith Allen got into an extremely heated row with the panel over his view that comedy was now being hamstrung to appease rules of political correctness. Just before storming off the live broadcast, Allen stormed at an Asian member of the panel, writer Farrukh Dhondy, that "It's not a chip you've got on your shoulder, it's a fucking vindaloo!". He later attempted to explain to press reporters, claiming he used vindaloo because it is faux ethnic, like those who he accused of being self-appointed spokespeople for ethnic minority communities' rights in order to censor arts and culture. Others have praised the song for showing the multiculturalism of England, how a Goan/Portuguese dish became a postmodern national football anthem, although most of the lyrics are fairly nonsensical or as The Guardian put it "irritating, pretentiously proletarian jape". B&Q use the music to advertise their Tradepoint concession on their in store marketing.
