Heart As Big As Liverpool.
After the game we made our way round to the new Shankly exhibition at the club museum. After all our hard work we'd decided to invite ourselves (well you've got to be pushy) in to meet the old players. JJP, Andy, Sue and myself chatted to Cally, Big Ron Yeats, Peter Cormack, Billy Stevenson, The Saint, Chrissy Lawler, Tommy Lawrence and wee Brian Hall. The exhibition is called 'Heart As Big As Liverpool' after the anthemic track on Pete Wylie's soon to be released album. It's a song title that could indeed have been written specifically for Shankly. Pete was there and together we sank more than a few bottles of Liverpool FC vin rouge together. He told us that the song started out from a germ of an idea about Shankly and he agreed that it could (and may even would) make a brilliant football song. We look forward to it Wylie.
Pete Wylie - 26.03.00
by Stephen Done
Pete Wylie visits LFC Museum & Tour Centre
Heart as big as Liverpool
Pete Wylie, The Mighty WAH!, is a man who wears his heart very visibly on his sleeve and he is not noted for his restraint in expressing his emotions.
It therefore comes as no surprise that his passion for music and football is a delight to all who like their dedicated followers of football to be full-on fist-clenching Joey Jones types.
For Pete Wylie is the man responsible for writing 'Heart as big as Liverpool', a song first played at Anfield in pre-release 7 minutes-plus epic format by our very own George Sephton. Now available on CD for the first time, this huge, grand, swirling epic of a song is surely destined to enter the select group of classics associated with this club.
The song title was used in December as the name of the Shankly exhibition in the museum because it was directly inspired by the great man himself, as Pete explains: 'I had some journalists in the house to do some filming of me talking about all the stuff I collect, about all the junk and memorabilia and the paraphernalia. And in the centre of the mantelpiece, right in the centre, at the front is the great Shankly picture: In front of the crowd with his arms outstretched, and there is Elvis, Mohammed Ali and Homer Simpson all around but he is the centre piece.
And so I tried to explain to the journalist why Shankly meant more to me than even rock stars, considering the job I do is 'musician' , 'singer' whatever. And it led to me to think how do you explain about something...about inspiration? So I started writing a song about the feeling that I get from him. And then it became to be about the people that you love, the people that inspire you on any level whether it is your family, your friends, your heroes, the ordinary guy you see doing something amazing you know? And so the song grew out to that and became a kind of 'thank you' letter to all those people - to the other people that I love; to my daughter, to Shankly, to the guys who I work with, to my mum and dad.
Bill Shankly
'The song was inspired by Bill Shankly and clearly it becomes a song about whoever you love - its got to be that way.
'Some people have a little dig because it says Liverpool in the title...to be honest the key to me is the word 'heart'. That's what it is about. I connected the other week when Aldo was in the Tranmere semi- final when they got through to the Worthington Cup Final, and after the match the commentator said 'The team played with real heart' and Aldo; 'he's all heart' and I just thought that's exactly what it's about!
The song applies to him as well as it does to anyone. I think a good song should be about a feeling or an emotion or a collection of emotions not about a specific situation. It should not be like you can only sing this song on a Tuesday if you are holding a green pen and the Queen Mother is sitting quite near you. That doesn't matter to me. That's not the way I write songs.'
As an entertainer of rare quality (the 'Guardian' hailed his recent London gig as already one of the highlights of the year), it is perhaps unsurprising that Pete's early Kop hero was another entertainer - the nippy winger Peter Thompson.
'My favourite player was Peter Thompson. And to this day he remains my favourite. There might be players who people think are better than him or more valuable or more high profile, but he just caught my imagination you know? I still love him.
I still regret Alun Evans playing in the 1971 F.A. Cup final against Arsenal, because I thought at the time that if Peter had played [the whole game] he would have torn them apart, and when they did bring him on he DID tear them apart! Obviously the thing everybody remembers from that match is Charlie George lying on his back. But I remember Peter Thompson coming on and whipping up and down and making fools of everybody in the Arsenal defence. He was just brilliant you know?'
May 8th 1971 was significant for other reasons, it heralded a permanent love of Liverpool FC and also the start of Pete's musical career: 'That day is significant because that is the day also, I bought my first electric guitar. It was the point of me becoming serious about what I did. It was like making a big decision and for me to sacrifice five minutes of the F A Cup final to buy a guitar was a big deal.
'I have still got the neck of the guitar, but I haven't got the rest of it. I actually tried to hit me dad with it and there is a dent in me mum's wall still to this day. In those Pete Townsend type teenage rebellious years...mind you I only swung the guitar last week!'
Wylie's first ever memory of visiting Anfield was in 1966 in a match against Burnley, when it was Ron Yeats who made the lasting impression:
'My dad took me to see Liverpool v Burnley in think it was '66...and my single memory of the day is Ron Yeats kicking the ball so high in the air that I just could not believe it - that it could go that high but it came down and Burnley scored! I met Ron Yeats the other week at the Shankly Exhibition and I said to him 'that is my first ever memory of a football match, you kicking the ball really high up in the air' and he said 'It was probably a pass, son!'. So I love him for that'.
But it is Peter Thompson who still commands the greatest respect from Wylie, who fondly recalls the inept attempt he made as a young lad to join Thompson's fan club:
'I actually wrote to his fan club, and I sent a postal order - to this day I even remember the address - but I didn't fill in the postal order or give a return address! But I did wait months for the postman to come with the letter - it was like a family joke at the time - I think there's an episode of 'The Simpsons' where Bart does the same, just waiting every day for the package to come back and it never came. But I never lost my love of Peter .
'And then, when we went to the Coventry game the other week, the Shankly 40th anniversary, it was a chance to relive that memory when Peter came on at half time to take a penalty, introduced by Phil Easton, with Brian Hall and some of the other former players. Anyway, they had 2 penalties each and Peter took the first one, scored beautifully, pulled a muscle and was led off the pitch! I just couldn't believe it I was absolutely mortified. I also wanted to meet him after the game, and, well I failed dismally. But no, Peter Thompson is just the greatest.'
'A Heart A Big as Liverpool' by The Mighty WAH! was released on Castle Records, 20th March. The album 'Songs of Strength and Heartbreak' is released on 10th April.
