VARIOUS: Il Divo and Toni Braxton launch official World Cup song "The time of our lives"

Record ID: 475817

  • Title: VARIOUS: Il Divo and Toni Braxton launch official World Cup song "The time of our lives"
  • Date: 1st June 2006
  • Summary: STOCKHOLM, SWEDEN (RECENT) (REUTERS) SONGWRITER, JÖRGEN ELOFSSON, WALKING DOWN STAIRS TO PIANO ELOFSSON'S AWARDS ON WALL
  • Embargoed: 16th June 2006 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Topics: Entertainment
  • Reuters ID: LVADPQYIQHUDYS4D62T00QYMPWZ0
  • Story Text: Nine days to go until the World Cup starts. The last friendlies are being played, some final adjustments are made and a few injuries still need to heal before the world cup starts with Germany against Costa Rica.
    And just in time, the official World Cup video and song "The time of our lives" have been released featuring opera quartet Il Divo and Toni Braxton.
    Since Il Divo was formed in late 2003 they have sold more than five million copies of their debut album and hit the number one slot in thirteen countries. Their pop opera has an appeal to a broad audience all over the world.
    "It's a great honour, it's a great pleasure to be chosen to lead you know the kick off to the start of the opening game and then at the final ceremony as well. To be able to sing the anthem, it's a real privilege," American tenor Davis Miller says. He continues:
    "We're standing on the field and we were told that very few people get to stand on that field. The players, the coaches but pretty much anyone else that touch that field could go to jail. So we're standing there and we're looking around this huge stadium thinking okay this is big deal, this is a really a big deal. And to have as Urs said so many billion people watching. Not only the video that we're making but who will be watching that ceremony as well. It's a bit awe-inspiring."
    The video was recorded both at the Cardiff Millennium Stadium in Wales and in Los Angeles where Toni Braxton shot her part.
    "Obviously we didn't have the chance to see Toni Braxton because she wasn't there. She will be on some screens on the stadium that were not in the stadium so we had to pretend that we were singing to her on the screens and that was bad. It was a very quick shooting, sometimes it lasts for hours and hours and this one was this quick," Frenchman Sebastien Izambard explains.
    "The song is like passion obviously. I think it can in a way describe the passion that hopefully all the players and all the teams are going to have on the field so I think it's a song about passion," Spanish baritone Carlos Marin says.
    Coming from four different countries all qualified for the World Cup, the Il Divo members are set to have an interesting month ahead of them. And they will have to watch the games together as they start their US tour right after the opening ceremony. So who's going to win it?
    "I have no idea. Brazil has always a very strong team and I always find Brazil a very nice team. They play good, they don't play dirty. Germany has always a very good team but Germany plays just very hard. I think that might be a possible final. The English team is very strong too I hear so one of these possibly," Swiss tenor Urs Toni Buhler says.
    Composer of the song is Swedish Jorgen Elofsson. With more than a hundred million units sold and songs written for artists like Britney Spears, Kelly Clarkson and Westlife in his portfolio, everyone is likely to have heard a Jorgen Elofsson creation. Still he rates the opportunity to compose the official song for a World Cup as a peak in his career.
    "It's a very special moment in anybody's career as a songwriter to be a part of such a thing. And to see the song being performed infant of so many people, these big stars singing, and on top of that, billion of people watching it on TV, I mean it's like.... It's going to catch up to me and I'll probably shed a few tears. Of joy that is."
    Elofsson explains that "The time of our lives" was a totally different thing compared to what he normally writes.
    "The inspiration to the song.... I had to go back into myself because I had to sort of figure out what football is to me and what it means to a lot of people in the world. Football is like a dream, it's a dream of succeeding, it's a dream of coming together, it's a dream of making dreams come true really."
    The idea he got was to let the song tell a story about football not only in words but also in the music.
    "Well it's a ballad and obviously I wanted it to start out slow and become very very big in the end.It is also how a career in football for instance travels you know. You start out very small in the street kicking a tin can or whatever you gonna do and you carry on as years pass and as long as you're motivated and you can go into little league and big league and whatever they are called and then finally you might end up with the big boys you know."
    "The time of our lives" will be performed both at the opening ceremony of the World Cup and at the finale.
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