Eric Cantona - he sings, he scores!

Football, Association Football, Soccer, Footie, the Game, call it what you will, is arguably the most potent social-cultural phenomenon in the modern world. Football is the great leveller, an all-consuming passion, enjoyed by all classes, all cultures, all ages, all IQs. It is also used by ‘ordinary’ people, (who generally read ‘The Daily Telegraph’) as a stick with which to beat ‘high’ culture – ‘Why should opera need subsidy when football doesn’t?’ But football’s links to high culture are well acknowledged. French existentialist philosophers, Jean-Paul Satre and Albert Camus were huge football enthusiasts, Roy Hodgson, ex-England manager, now working his magic with Crystal Palace FC, is a polyglot (with more than adequate Swedish for example) who enjoys reading ‘serious’ fiction – he was ‘football adviser’ to Sebastian Faulks when the latter was writing his novel ‘A Week in December’, the late Gerard Houllier, Liverpool manager, had an English degree and was a teacher, including time at a Liverpool comprehensive, before going into management full-time; Luciano Pavarotti was a goal keeper in his youth…

These more or less random observations are prompted by the news that Eric Cantona, Manchester United legend and one of the greatest footballers ever to play the game, is planning to record an album of songs as part of a series of concerts he is giving in Manchester, London, Lyon, Marseille and Paris (all sold out apparently). Of course, Cantona’s ‘hinterland’ is well known: when he was a boy he was interested in two things, art and football, he has acted in over twenty films, including ‘Looking for Eric’ directed by Ken Loach, an auteur he clearly admires, and has financed a production of Beckett’s ‘En attendant Godot’; he cites Rimbaud, Artaud and The Doors as influences. He is also a notably witty and erudite interviewee – read him in conversation with Simon Hattenstone, The Guardian, January 2, 2023.

Cantona has released an EP prior to recording his full-length album and, I must say, I was rather charmed by it. He wrote both music and lyrics; I assume he is accompanied by top-flight session musicians: everything sounds very polished. He does not really sing (certainly not in any sense ex-goalkeeper Pavarotti would recognize) but he intones soulfully in the manner of the last albums of Leonard Cohen with something of a Jacques Brel/Serge Gainsbourg vibe. My French is not good enough to pass comment on ‘Tu mi diras’, but ‘The Friends We Lost’ and ‘I’ll Make My Own Heaven’ are sensitive performances of resonant Cantona lyrics: ‘Watch yourself in the mirror, someone you hate, someone you love.’; ‘You hate me, you love me. I’m only judged by myself.’ Cantona says ‘I feel completely in connection with my voice’ and I wouldn’t argue with that. He is no Leonard Cohen or Serge Gainsbourg but I think he is worth listening to, so with all respect Eric, we shall judge you, but I don’t think anyone will hate you.