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Zidane head butt spawns hit
"Coup de Boule," a whim of a jingle composed by three Frenchmen in the days after the controversial World Cup Final, is all the rage in Europe.
The head butt that sent shockwaves around the world has inspired a song that is currently blowing up the spot in Europe.
The head butt heard 'round the world.
The unlikely hit, dubbed "Coup de Boule," or "Head Butt," was inspired by the now-infamous head butt French captain Zinedine Zidane delivered into the chest of insult-spewing Italian player Marco Materazzi during the World Cup Final July 9.
The song was written by Franck Lascombes and brothers Sebastien and Emmanuel Lipszyc, who run a sound-production firm called La Plage, in the days after the match, which Italy won on penalty kicks after Zidane was ejected from the match for the head butt.
"We were depressed and couldn't work. People were sending jokes around the Internet," said Sebastien Lipszyc told the Times. "Franck came up with the idea of joining in all this reaction. Our jokes became lyrics and it was finished in half an hour. We used instrumentals that we had in stock."
The Caribbean-tinged song centers on the chorus, "Zidane a frappé, la Coupe on l'a ratée" (Zidane struck, we blew the cup).
Soon after it was created, the La Plage crew emailed "Coup de Boule" to some friends and heard it on French radio just a few hours later. From there, the song went through the roof, with Warner Music France winning a bidding war for the song.
Since it came out last week, more than 150,000 physical copies of the single have been sold, and another 100,000 have been downloaded, according to Warner Music. It now stands atop the singles chart in France and is being sold in more than 20 countries.
"We are in the process of making a miracle," Warner Music France President Thierry Cassagne told the Times.
Zidane's head butt took on a life of its own on the Internet in the immediate aftermath of the World Cup, with a slew of parodies, video montages, and other songs appearing online.
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