Welsh pop star Bonnie Tyler, who passed away on July 8 at age 75, left behind a towering musical legacy. In Argentina, however, she will also be remembered for something she likely never imagined: her enduring popularity in Argentine football stadiums.

Singing stadium chants is an essential part of the Argentine match-going experience. You’re expected — and encouraged — to sing, ideally while jumping up and down.

Argentines will often bring instruments — most notably drums and sometimes trumpets — to stadiums, but they seldom rely on original songwriting talent. As a general rule, they’re adaptations of popular songs, hailing from a myriad of origins.

The lyrics almost entirely changed to reflect either the team or the fan’s glory — or how cowardly, ruinous or poor some rival is — but the rhyme and tempo remain unaltered. 

While most clubs have their own songs, or versions of them, some are universal to Argentine football. Few feelings are as common among fans as the frustration over players not quite taking the match seriously enough. And that’s how Bonnie Tyler’s “It’s a Heartache” became a staple of Argentine stadiums.

Written by Ronnie Scott and Steve Wolfe and released in November 1977, the song became one of Welsh singer Bonnie Tyler’s biggest hits. It topped the charts in several countries and reached No. 3 in the U.S. and No. 4 in the UK, so it’s no surprise that Argentines became acutely aware of its pace and rhythm.

Yet in the stands, its original themes of futility and unrequited love were replaced by other, more mundane ones, like frustration and eagerness. 

“Hey players, you sons of b*tches, how about putting your heart to it, you’re playing against nobodies,” people sing at the top of their lungs, following the rhythm of the song’s first verse. Nearly 40 years since the original song’s release, the chant has become a classic of big teams when facing tough times.

Despite hailing from a football-obsessed country like Britain, it’s unlikely that Tyler ever heard about the Argentine “remix” of one of her biggest hits, and never spoke on the matter.

However, she’s far from the only international artist whose work has inspired Argentine football chants.

Creedence Clearwater Revival won’t tell you what it feels like

As a stadium chant, a song can go through different stages and target audiences. Released in April 1969, Creedence Clearwater Revival’s “Bad Moon Rising” speaks of looming bad times as the world — and particularly the U.S. — entered the turbulent yet hopeful social climate of the late 60s.

It was first picked up by San Lorenzo fans around the same time, as the club — one of Argentina’s big five —  was fighting for its economic and sporting survival in the 2010s.

Yet the song only became a universal anthem in 2014, when it was modified once again, this time to target Brazil ahead of that year’s World Cup. 

“Brazil, tell me how does it feel like, to have your daddy home,” opens up the song. It then goes on to recall Argentina’s 1990 World Cup victory the last time the two met on the biggest stage.

It became ubiquitous at the 2014 World Cup, but has since been ridiculed by Brazilians in the aftermath of Argentina’s loss to Germany in the tournament’s final. 

Many Argentines would rather forget it, but a couple of clubs have brought it back, most notably River Plate after their historic win in the 2018 Copa Libertadores final against derby rivals Boca Juniors.

‘Bo’ goes the world

Some songs need big sweeping changes to turn them into stadium chants. Some chants have incredibly detailed lyrics that make it hard to follow or are very specific to one club. And then there’s “Pop goes the world.”

Released in October 1987 by Canadian new wave and synth-pop band Men Without Hats, the song saw major success in Europe but never reached the top of the U.S. or U.K. charts.

However, its incredibly catchy tune made it a great match for stadium chants across South America, and never more so than in Argentina, where it’s sung not to the lyrics, but to the rhythm. 

Fans have to be creative to fit their team’s name into the tempo. Boca fans go “Dale Bo, dale, dale Bo,” (Come on, Bo) while Independiente fans have to use their team’s nickname, “El Rojo” in order to make it fit. Classic rival Racing fans ditch the “dale” and instead shorten the nickname to sing “La Acadé, la Acadé, dale la Acadé,” a short for “La Academia,” the team’s nickname.

It’s a nearly universal tune across the country, so if you’re visiting a stadium you’ve never been to before, chances are you won’t go wrong with this one.

Oh la rivalité

On the other end of the spectrum, you have songs that fit so well and so uniquely with a specific team or situation that it’s very hard for fans of other teams to use them.

Few better examples of this spring to mind than Rosario Central’s fans’ use of Erasure’s 1986 hit “Oh l’Amour.” The third single from the English synth-pop duo’s debut studio album Wonderland reached No. 3 in the U.S.

Yet for Canalla fans, as Central’s followers are known, it speaks not of unrequited love but of all the failings of their historic rivals Newell’s Old Boys. 

The Rosario city derby is one of Argentine football’s fiercest rivalries. The fact that both clubs have never been able to continuously compete with the bigger Buenos Aires sides has given the derby a massive importance, and scoring points in the stands is almost as important as doing so on the pitch. 

While most of the song is fairly run-of-the-mill for football chants, the unique way in which the club’s name fits within the title and opening verse, changed from “Oh l’Amour” to “Llora Newell’s” (“Newell’s cries”), makes it very hard for other clubs to piggyback on the Canalla’s work. That way, it has remained exclusive to the blue-and-yellow half of Rosario, used to mock the other half of town.

Cover image: Wikimedia Commons