Okay… In order to get this mixtape party started, I figured I’d share the whole reason I decided to do this.
As someone who have watched le tour since I were a kid in the 90s, I’ve had a really complicated and changing relationship to the one race that everyone watches…
It’s been generally positive since… 2016ish, but this year I am happy to say that I fell fully in love with the Tour de France again. So here’s a love letter!
One stage, one song, but I already suspect I might end up breaking my own rules on the first attempt, so… strap in.
As this will be long, the notes about the songs will come in two posts!
Click the tape and it should send you directly to the playlist…
Annotated track listing, Team Presentation to Stage 11:
Love Shop - Copenhagen Dreaming
Team PresentationThe tour starting in my hometown was WEIRD, I tell you. Hence the first couple of stages having slightly longer notes.
Not the closed streets or the influx of tourists, no, what’s truly weird is when you’re unsure if a driver is letting you pass on bike on your way to work and it’s Patrick Lefevere in a Quickstep car. Of all people. Patrick Lefevere… *shudders*
He didn’t run me over, so guess he’s not totally evil or something.
A friend dragged me along to the team presentation, turns out I knew the sound guy, and NO, the live sound on site could not get better than it were (aka not good), but hey, the sun was out and I were there. It did sound and look good on telly though, which I guess was the important part.
Visit Copenhagen, Danish TV2 and Prudhomme couldn’t have asked for a better setting! Which leads us to a true Danish loveletter to Copenhagen!The Weather Girls - It’s Raining Men
Stage 1Yeah… The weather didn’t last. Could’ve told you that the Danish summer is not to be trusted.
I spent the entire day DJing (and live announcing, which was NOT planned) the University of Copenhagen’s event along the TT-route, so didn’t get to see much myself, but as it was an outdoor gig, I can personally attest to it being wet, more wet, windy and surprisingly cold. I honestly get Geraint not taking off his gilet…
A farmer’s son from Belgium won, another Belgian did a memorable disappointed face from the hot seat, and most favourites did what they were expected to, and the entire peloton of men went through the rain at a speed fitting this song.
I was also rather bored during the quiet parts of the gig and discovered CyclingTwitter. So there’s that.Fallulah - Bridges
Stage 2Sun came back. I got stuck in a train going to Kalundborg. The first point sprint of the tour was basically across from the supermarket where I worked when I were 15. I can neither deny nor confirm that this entire stage being a homage to meeee… Let’s just pretend it was, okay?
Made friends with other train passengers due to having GCN+ and arrived in time to find my parents and watch men on bikes go woooosh, so I’ll grade that as a win. Watching Cort sprint for actual KOM points on Asnæs Indelukke and Høve Stræde makes me feel very vindicated about having to train on them and hating it as a teenager. Then the peloton rode down my old “I just wanna go fast on the flat” route, and for the first time ever apparently there wasn’t enough wind to power a small metropol. I feel slightly offended by this after 100s of rides where the wind would always be a factor.
On to the bridge. Geronimo! Like in the the song. About bridges or well... metaphorically so at least. The song is honestly a bigger hit than Storebæltsbroen turned out be on the stage. And Falulah deserves a spot here, so that’s the song choice. Oh and results? Someone won, someone came second, again…Gangway - Mountain Song
Stage 3So… this one was kinda meh tbh. Sorry Jutland, but two days in a row of Magnus and his Moustache riding over the biggest hills we can muster as a country is fine for the Tour of Denmark, but yeah… Sorry. My lack of investment is probably showing a tad in the song selection as well.
Half the headlines in DK about Cort’s KOM jersey quotes the 80s rock-icon Michael Falch’s “I et land uden høje bjerge” (In a country without high mountains), but I frankly don’t like the song one bit, so instead you get this jangly art-pop blast from Danish pop-music’s past… The title fits, and it’s worth a listen. Oh, and someone, obviously, came second at this stage too.Taio Cruz - Dynamit
Stage 4Well, isn’t that just what we got for the last 12km of Stage 4? Dynamite.
In a yellow skinsuit. Ballsy moves deserve a ballsy bassline, even if the song is kinda dumb.
The crazy thing to me was that 1) the entire peloton must have known that Wout was tired of 2nd places and 2) JumboVisma had basically telegraphed their approach to this kinda finale since Paris Nice, and yet it worked… as the song say:
I came to move, move, move, move
Get out the way of me and my crew, crew, crew, crew. (Yeah! Y’know, for emphasis.)
So while yours truly and the entire cycling world were staring in awe and disbelief, Wout could finally sing “I just want it all, I just want it all, I'm gonna put my hands in the air, hands in the air…” and everybody liked that!
Well, everybody not named Jasper Phillipsen, the poor boy. But we’ll get to him later.Green Day - Panic Song
Stage 5Do I really need to say more? Do I? Really?
This stage was mayhem on so many fronts. Tactically, technically, safety wise, time-gap wise… It was everything-everywhere-all-at-once chaotic and overwhelming, and we haven’t even gotten to the crashes or bike changes yet.
My pulse stayed at 180bpm during the entire endeavour, the same tempo as this absolutely accurate auditory depiction of how the entire thing felt… This stage was the race equivalent of this song’s almost 2 minute instrumental intro of constantly rising intensity; noise, crashing (cymbals!) and all.
I really need a nap after this.Eminem - Without Me
Stage 6Well, what can I say…? Or rather - what would every commentator, pundit or media expert talk about if it wasn’t for Wout? And wouldn’t it be boring without him playing with our balls?
Avenged Sevenfold - Hail to the King
Stage 7Okay people! Hands up… Who was ready to crown Pogacar, The Undying, Unbeatable, Inevitable Boyking after stage 7 already? And of those who didn’t raise their hands, who are lying?
I think I have some very caps-locky “Whoa, actually way closer than feared/expected” text as receipts to prove I weren’t going off all premature, but still…This was very much the vibe, wasn’t it?
It felt like it was safe to say he’d already won, so Hail to the King indeed!
Fun fact - if you start the song once the distance-to-finish says 1,7 km, it fits pretty perfectly as a soundtrack for the really epic, dusty battle - complete with Majka waving Pogacar through on the second chorus and Vingegaard attacking at the onset of the final one… before the guitars ring out at the line.
It’s basically a shorter more action packed version than the Dark Side of the Moon and Wizard of Oz combo.Take That - Do What You Like
Stage 8Do Wout You Like!
’Nuff said, I think!
Maybe with the added line of “Energy, just work, no rest or play”, seriously… did that man rest a single day during the first 8 stages?
(Though; I still really really want JumboVisma to do a promo version of the video to this one… Wout is obviously Robbie, which makes Vingegaard… Mark? I guess? I was a Spice Girls Girl, not a Take That Girl, so I honestly have no idea…)The Clash - I’m Not Down
Stage 9Dear Bob Jungels. Or Jungle-Bob as the late great Chris Anker would have said.
It’s been a rough couple of years, but welcome back!
I’m not afraid to admit that I were trying to hex the race in favour of a TiboPino victory here, but I love a good comeback story as much as the next not-quite-as-young-anymore girl, so you earned this one, fair and square.
And to celebrate - the most dad-rocky number ever recorded by The Clash.Beastie Boys - Fight For Your Right
Stage 10Mister Moustachio is BACK with a bang, baby! Or something.
And yeah yeah, I know Cort went viral with a post about helicoptoring to Rammstein (I mean, if you gotta do it, do it right, I guess…), but this song feels like a very apt theme for both him as a rider, this victory (it was, every pun intended, a struggle-bus at times) and the whole EF-Education First Team…
With Palace designing their jerseys it only felt right to mix in an old skate park anthem.
And if you exchange the mom/dad/teacher for UCI in the lyrics, it’s pretty much Jonathan Vaughter’s twitter account…Hamilton Cast (Lin Manuel Miranda) - My Shot
Stage 11Soehm. That was a stage and a half!
I think even sitting here, 7 months later, in the dead of winter, it still makes me all sweaty and excited thinking about it.
Without even considering the result, the way the whole stage played out from km zero and to way after the finish line was just a magical day of cycling. Period.
And epic racing deserves epic music. I don’t make the rules. (Well, I guess I do, but the point still stands…)
Seeing a team collectively take on the undefeated king of the race like that… seeing a pale introverted underdog in the shape of Vingegaard rise up to challenge Pogacar… seeing him grab his chance and going for it…
Well, there is only one song for this very occasion, and in this thesis I will…
Well, I’ll spare you the full thesis, but stay with me here:
You and I. Do or die. → Mr. No Risk, No Glory, Roglic himself have entered the chat!Give me a position, show me where the ammunition is → Don’t try to tell me this wasn’t Wout in the team meeting before the stage…
I never had a group of friends before, I promise that I'll make y'all proud →Every introvert overachiever ever… Hello Jonas.
Let's get this guy in front of a crowd → A chorus of DSs led by Grisha and Merjin.
Okay, I’ll keep the rest of my extremely detailed extrapolation of the lyrics from the Broadway Stage unto a Tour Stage to myself, but you get the picture.
And btw - I am NOT equating Pogacar to the mad King George, but I am more than willing to assist with props and dance moves if he wants to do his own version of “You’ll be back”… Heck, I’ll even sing backing on the lalalalala parts of it.
Btw again: Who would G be in this mix? Burr being “in the room (on the mountain) where it happened”? Opinions are welcome.Pheeew, that was the first half of the playlist explained. Pt. 2 will follow shortly, but this post would be the length of Wout’s solo breakaways if I didn’t split it... And I really don’t have the stamina for that.
You can find Pt. 2 here!