Give Us a Goal
| "Give Us a Goal" | ||||
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UK cover of "Give Us a Goal"
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| Single by Slade | ||||
| B-side | "Daddio" | |||
| Released | 24 February 1978 | |||
| Format | 7" Single | |||
| Genre | Hard rock | |||
| Length | 2:49 | |||
| Label | Barn Records | |||
| Songwriter(s) | Noddy Holder, Jim Lea | |||
| Producer(s) | Chas Chandler | |||
| Slade singles chronology | ||||
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"Give Us a Goal" is a song by the British rock band Slade, released in 1978 as a non-album single. It was written by lead vocalist Noddy Holder and bassist Jim Lea, and produced by Chas Chandler. A football-themed song, it failed to chart on the UK Singles Chart.
Having returned to the UK from the United States in August 1976, Slade found themselves out-of-favour at the time of the UK's Punk rock explosion. The band's 1977 album Whatever Happened to Slade proved a commercial failure while their tour that spring had shown that they could no longer fill large venues. Slade's waning success soon led to the band playing small gigs after that, including universities and clubs. Despite being successful at filling small venues for their live performances, the band's new records were barely selling. Although the band's October 1977 single "My Baby Left Me - That's All Right" had reached the UK Top 40, the successive single "Give Us a Goal", released in February 1978, was one of the band's string of singles to fail to chart during this period. It had been released to coincide with the band's UK tour during March-April. Despite failing to reach the UK Top 50, the song reached No. 70 on chart compiler Gallup's Weekly Sales Top 100 Chart.
Having written the tune, the idea for the lyrics of "Give Us a Goal" came after Holder suggested the band come up with a song about football to try and appeal to the band's following, many of which were football supporters. For the 1991 video compilation Wall of Hits, Lea recalled: "I wrote this tune and I said to Nod 'I've got this rock 'n' roll tune and this is the way it goes' and Nod said 'Let's do one about football because we've always had this football following, and scarves and "You'll Never Walk Alone" and always this great empathy with the whole thing about football. I was never really convinced about doing a football song, nevertheless the video was fun." The song was originally recorded at Advision Studios in London in January/February 1978, and later re-recorded at Olympic Studios later in February.
In 2008, the song was used in a UK TV advert for the football video game Fifa 09.
"Give Us a Goal" was released on 7" vinyl by Barn Records in the UK, Ireland, France, Germany and Belgium. It was also released on 12" vinyl in Italy, which was Slade's first release on 12" vinyl. The B-Side, "Daddio", was exclusive to the single and would later appear on the band's 2007 compilation B-Sides.
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