Occasionally, this blog is relevant―like really, really relevant. Topical too. Like when the sportsball team from my ancestral homeland makes the national news with an epic crowd chant, and the hot new beats widget is up within the week.
The Viking Row is a popular soccer chant used by the Norwegian team. It consists of two tom-toms followed by shouting “Roo!” which is a cute Norwegian way of saying “row.” It gradually speeds up until it reaches a climax at breakbeat tempo—a popular sports song trope which mimics the sexual experience.
This is how the Vikings discovered America, shrooming and pillaging to a 4/4 beat.
First, there is a rest between measures. The fermata is held at the drummer’s discretion. As the tempo picks up, the space between the notes shrinks and smears into noisy applause.
Before the Row, there was the Viking Clap, which is basically the same thing but with a clap and a “Huh!” Some prefer the elegance of the seated Row, while others the stand-up Clap. We Scandi bros shouldn’t fight about it.
There are many similar chants, and they’re all based on the beat of “We Will Rock You,” which is a sportsball staple with its stomp-stomp-clap pattern.
All these soccer chants are said to derive from the scene in 300.
“Spartans! What is your profession?” They bang their shields and shout: “Huh!”
They don’t actually bang their shields, fake news.
“Fans in Scotland picked up on it at some point after the film. “It’s been popular here for a few years but I’m not sure quite when it started,” says Motherwell fans’ representative Dave Wardrope. He agreed that the film played a part and said: “No one is certain but we don’t think our fans took it from another club’s supporters. They made it up themselves.” [source]
That’s the story the Scotsman tells, but we know he can never be true.
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The biggest sing-alongs on Earth are found at sporting events. People will clap and stomp to the sparsest of musical cues, a Hammond organ or a tom-tom, to produce the flammiest of beats spread across miles of subjective timings—the slow speed of sound be damned.
Yeah, I like Sports.
