England 'It's Coming Home' meaning, explained: How the 1996 song, lyrics became a meme for soccer fans
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It doesn't take much for the old refrain to strike up.
Every matchday, every goal and definitely every win (although there's famously not been quite enough of those).
As England embark upon their latest bid for glory in the knockout stages of a major tournament, you'll hear it again and again.
"It's coming home!"
But why do England soccer fans say and chant this, and why have they been doing it for the past 30 years, doubling the original quantity of hurt?
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England 'It's Coming Home' meaning, explained
The "it's coming home" refrain comes from the song Three Lions, recorded by English comedians Frank Skinner and David Baddiel and Liverpool pop group The Lightning Seeds in 1996. It was released to coincide with England's participation in and hosting of Euro 96, soccer's European Championship. It went to No. 1 in the UK singles chart.
Lightning Seeds singer and songwriter Ian Broudie was approached by the Football Association (FA) to compose a song for the tournament. But the FA didn't reckon on the fact that Broudie was not simply a pop star for hire; he was a keen Liverpool supporter, attuned to English fan culture at the time.
Skinner and Baddiel had carved out their own niche within that as the hosts of "Fantasy Football League" on the BBC, a comedy sketch show loosely pegged upon the burgeoning fantasy league craze.
Broudie already had the now-famous chorus line, which was inspired by official tournament posters that had the tagline "Football Comes Home" — a reference to England being the birthplace of soccer and a nation hosting its first major tournament since the 1966 World Cup. He asked Skinner and Baddiel to write the rest of the lyrics, and a classic was born.
Instead of the usual bombast of football songs — ironic, given how this one is now viewed in some quarters (see below) — and their blunt declarations of how teams are going to win it all, the magic of Three Lions lay in its misery. Broudie's decision to rope in two writers who happened to be die-hard football fans — Skinner supports West Brom, while Baddiel is a Chelsea man — was a masterstroke. The lack of tub-thumping and a focus on how fans pine for glory far more often than they experience it gave the song an authenticity that is part of its enduring appeal. Self-deprecation might also be considered one of England's national sports.
Ahead of England hosting matches at the pandemic-delayed Euro 2020, Baddiel told The Guardian:
When we sat down to write, the first thing me and Frank talked about was reality: the reality of being an England fan that is. The show was about the reality of being a football fan and the way we approached the song was the same. Instead of writing an idealised or triumphant song, like most of the ones beforehand, with their visions of winning the cup, this time more than any other time, we decided to write a song about assuming that we, England, were going to lose. Because that's what experience had taught us. Three Lions, really, is a song about magical thinking. About assuming we are going to lose, reasonably, based on experience, but hoping that somehow we won't.
In 2016, Skinner told a BBC documentary reflecting on Euro 96: "The weird thing was [Broudie] was famous for writing bittersweet love songs, and he said he didn't think he could write a football song. So we came in and wrote a bittersweet love song about the England football team."
But well-judged songcraft wouldn't have counted for much without a team to hang the song on. England hosted Euro 96, having failed to qualify for the World Cup in 1994. The period since their run to the semifinals of the 1990 World Cup in Italy had been one of general shambles.
A lacklustre 1-1 draw against Switzerland in the tournament opener did not bode well, but a 2-0 win over neighbours Scotland in their next group game — complete with a genius solo goal for the ages from the mercurial Paul Gascoigne — lit the touchpaper. At fulltime, the Wembley stadium DJ played Three Lions and the crowd roared along.
The song continued to soundtrack England's run through the competition under astute coach Terry Venables, from the effervescent 4-1 win over the Netherlands — still arguably the country's greatest 90-minute performance in a major competition — to the scrappy 0-0 draw with Spain that ended in a cathartic penalty shootout win in the quarterfinals.
When England played out a gripping 1-1 draw with Germany in the semifinals before losing 6-5 on penalties, they had provided magic moments and got to within touching distance of greatness before bitter disappointment kicked in. To an extent, life had imitated art, and Three Lions was baked in as a national treasure.
Skinner, Baddiel and the Lightning Seeds returned two years later with Three Lions '98 ahead of the World Cup in France, with fresh lyrics referencing England's exploits at Euro 96 and afterwards. But the familiar refrain remained. And it's never really gone away.
Three Lions (Football's Coming Home) song lyrics
The lyrics to Three Lions reference several famous moments from the history of the England national team.
The 1966 World Cup win, which remains England men's only major tournament win, is heavily referenced. The "30 years of hurt" mark the time between then and Euro 96. That tally now stands at 60.
"Bobby belting the ball" is a note for Bobby Charlton's thunderous long-range strike in the 2-0 group-stage win over Mexico that kick-started England's tournament. "Nobby dancing" recalls Charlton's Manchester United teammate Nobby Stiles' inimitable jig with the Jules Rimet trophy (also mentioned) after England beat West Germany 4-2 in the final after extra time.
World Cup-winning captain Bobby Moore enjoyed a showreel moment when England defended the trophy in Mexico in 1970, performing an immaculate block tackle on the great Pele during a narrow defeat to Brazil ("that tackle by Moore").
When Brazil won the World Cup for a third time in 1970, they got to keep the Jules Rimet trophy. The current trophy was introduced for 1974. Namechecking the old trophy can therefore be read as acknowledging a key part of a glorious English past that is now gone for good.
Gary Lineker was England's all-time leading goal-scorer at the time, so "when Lineker scored" could feasibly refer to any number of goals, but it is most likely a nod towards his equaliser against West Germany in the 1990 World Cup semifinal, which was depicted in the promotional video for Three Lions.
Three Lions lyrics in full
It's coming home, it's coming home, it's coming, football's coming home
It's coming home, it's coming home, it's coming, football's coming home
Everyone seems to know the score
They've seen it all before
They just know, they're so sure
That England's gonna throw it away, gonna blow it away but I know they can play
'Cause I remember
Three Lions on a shirt
Jules Rimet still gleaming
Thirty years of hurt
Never stopped me dreaming
So many jokes, so many smears
But all those oh-so-nears wear you down through the years
But I still see that tackle by Moore and when Lineker score, Bobby belting the ball,
And Nobby dancing
Three Lions on a shirt
Jules Rimet still gleaming
30 years of hurt
Never stopped me dreaming
I know that was then but it could be again
It's coming home, it's coming home, it's coming, football's coming home
It's coming home, it's coming home, it's coming, football's coming home
Why opponents have criticised Three Lions as 'arrogant'
Aside from capturing a moment in time and a timeless communal feeling, as outlined above, there are other factors that have helped Three Lions to endure three decades later.
Firstly, after a couple of high-profile attempts at new anthems for subsequent tournaments bombed (The Spice Girls and Echo and the Bunnymen — old contemporaries of Broudie's from the post-punk Liverpool music scene — were unlikely allies under the banner 'England United' in 1998), people basically stopped trying.
Following Embrace's 'World At Your Feet' for the 2006 World Cup ("It's one of the my biggest regrets doing that, that and smoking. If I could live my life again I wouldn't go near it with a barge pole," guitarist Richard McNamara said this year, reflecting on the little-remembered No. 3 hit single), banner attempts at England tournament songs more or less dried up. Three Lions was there for posterity.
The 2006 tournament was the last hurrah for England's so-called 'Golden Generation', captained by David Beckham and managed by Sven-Goran Eriksson. For the second consecutive World Cup, they bowed out at the quarterfinal stage. Led by Eriksson's former assistant Steve McClaren, England failed to qualify for Euro 2008. Then came moments of ignominious failure: a 2010 World Cup thrashing by Germany in the Round of 16, a group-stage exit four years later, and the total humiliation of being dumped out of Euro 2016 by Iceland.
By this point, a nation had completely fallen out of love with its team. Rebuilding that link was central to Gareth Southgate's mission when he took on a once prestigious job that no one wanted in autumn 2016. Piece by piece, he did exactly that. An unfancied team plotted a path to the semifinals of the 2018 World Cup in Russia.
For the first time in many years, pub gardens teemed with optimism alongside the beer. It hadn't felt this way for ages, maybe not since Southgate missed the decisive penalty against Germany in 1996. His personal redemption story was irresistible. England fans were happy. They had something to tell one another.
"It's coming home."
It tapped into Skinner, Baddiel and Broudie's sentiment: one about hope, one about the journey, one about 'what if...' Alas, such subtleties were lost on some further afield and, not for the first time in history, people thought the English were just being arrogant a--holes.
Croatia captain Luka Modric and head coach Zlatko Dalic each supposedly saw 'It's coming home' as a sign of disrespect to their team and used this to fuel a 2-1 win in the Moscow semifinals. Dalic is still in post and has never been too far away from mentioning the song during press conferences around subsequent meetings with England, in a "I'm not bothered, guys... honestly, I'm not" kind of way.
Others have been less subtle. Dutch great Ruud Gullit branded Three Lions "arrogant", booming England "does not own football". England certainly doesn't own the song anymore. It has remained popular with German fans since their country went all the way at Euro 96. After Italy beat England (yes, on penalties) in the final of Euro 2020, Azzurri defender Leonardo Bonucci quipped, "It's coming to Rome!"
The problem with the passage of time, and England's fallow period after Three Lions was initially a hit, is that the context of the era changes and fades. Baddiel, Skinner and the Lightning Seeds were all, to varying extents, part of the "Cool Britannia" in the mid 1990s. Despite the slightly cringeworthy banner, this was a time when music, art and football were all loosely bound as part of an outward-looking, progressive patriotism in the UK, as a change from Conservative to Labour government for the first time in 18 years edged closer.
Southgate's England and their Three Lions redux existed against the backdrop of the UK's Brexit vote, when patriotism in the country came to feel more insular and, at times, angry with a misplaced sense of superiority. This was the England that people like Gullit and Dalic saw and thought, "I wish those idiots would stop singing that damned song."
Maybe it's best to leave the final word to the man whose fault this whole thing is.
"I didn't want it to be England-istic, or nationalistic," Broudie told The Guardian of the de facto national anthem he helped to write. "In my mind, the line, 'It's coming home' is more about being a football fan, which, for 90% of the time, is losing. Most of being a football fan is disappointment."
But, it might not be. That lie we all tell ourselves, that reason to long that it will come home this time, is the beautiful truth at the heart of Three Lions.
