Nutmeg Radio

So you’ve been asking around for new music?  Well these aren’t exactly new, but here are a few fantastic songs from South America that highlight the intersection of music and football.  First up — the great Manu Chao (I know he’s French).  The song is called La Vida Tombola, and as you can tell from the video, it’s about that lovable pudgy guy, Diego Maradona.  There’s some quality early footage of young Maradona.  Check it out after the jump.

From Argentina, we head next door to Brazil for a tribute song by Brazilian artist, Jorge Ben.  Fio Maravilha is a song about João Batista de Sales, a Brazilian footballer, who as you might guess, went by the nickname Fio Maravilha. Jorge Ben was attending a match between Flamengo and Portugal’s Benfica at the legendary Maracana stadium in Rio de Janeiro.  At the time, Fio Maravilha played for Flamengo.  He was left out of the starting lineup much to the chagrin of the Flamengo faithful.   When he finally entered the game, Fio Maravilha predictably scored the winning goal, which apparently was enough to inspire Jorge Ben to write the following song:

Fio Maravilha may not be as popular as Maradona, but hopefully he can sleep well knowing that he’s in the elite club of people who become immortalized in song.  That may not sound like much, but I don’t see anyone writing songs about you in your cubicle.  Oooh.  I know, too soon.

And with that, back for one last trip to Argentina.  Why not close this one out with a contribution from Diego Maradona himself, um, about himself.  I would have paid money to see this live.  He’s actually covering a song by Argentine artist, Rodrigo Bueno.

Is the song great?  No.  But it’s damn entertaining.

We’ll do more of these, but if anyone requests anything related to Ricky Martin and THAT World Cup song, the answer is no.