Released Tuesday and titled “Euro History 2012,” the song rewrites and strings together lyrics from musical hits out of Russia, France, and the United Kingdom. The lines recall landmark events of the European Championship since 1960, when it started in France with four teams as the European Nations Cup.
Tai, a former leader of the music and performance team at Da Nang University of Technology, also uses the tune to link Euro events with historical and football-related milestones that happened in Vietnam at that time.
For instance, he begins by singing about Vietnam’s 1960 division into north and south, using Russia’s well-known wartime song Katyusha as a soundtrack.
When Tai arrives at Euro 1988 in Italy, the lyrics explain that Vietnamese football lovers could only enjoy the tournament by listening to the radio and reading newspapers, as television remained out of reach for most.
‘Favorite’ medley
Tai is no stranger to viral videos. Last year, when Indonesia hosted the 26th Southeast Asian Games, two of his lyric-altered clips spread across the Internet. One rooted for players on the Vietnamese team before the championship; the other raised them up after their failure.
“After the songs written for the SEA Games, I wanted to do something bigger,” Tai said. “That was when the idea of writing about the history of the Euro occurred to me.”
He said he researched online for hours and consulted older people who had watched the tournament in the 1990s.
“I also had to link the Euro with historical events in Vietnam, and chose songs that are well-known to most listeners,” Tai said.
Hundreds of thousands have flocked to his musical tribute, even forgiving a minor mistake when he sings that Poland and Croatia, rather than Ukraine, are hosting Euro 2012. One viewer commented on Youtube that the slip “does not have any big impact on such a must-see video clip of this year’s Euro.”
The hardest part, Tai said, was to alter the original songs’ lyrics, which he did for up to 16 hours a day, 12 days in a row. But it seemed to be worth it.
“The Euro medley is my favorite ever,” he said.
Here is the clip posted on Youtube: