The Bundesliga’s Harry Kane announcement song is the worst thing you’ll see today

I don’t really want to write this article. The subject matter has germinated within me a kind of post-traumatic dread that lingers in the shadowy recesses of my every waking thought. Even in sleep, there is no relief. I close my eyes and I see floating abominations - a cell-shaded caricature of Prince William’s disproportionate forehead, the phrase ‘#EnglishBrady’ in nauseating bubble writing. But alas, I have been asked to comment, and comment I shall. Apologies in advance.

Harry Kane has signed for Bayern Munich. You already knew that, though. Last week, the England captain left Tottenham Hotspur after a lifetime with his boyhood club to pursue silverware and acclaim in Bavaria. On his first day in Germany, he lost the DFL-Supercup final. You can take the boy of Spurs etc etc, and other such low-hanging fruit.

I’m not here to talk about any of that though. Instead, I want to address the accompanying song and cartoonish music video that the Bundesliga themselves released to herald his arrival.

If you haven’t seen it yet, please don’t bother. In fact, run for your life. Save yourself, I’ll hold it back. At this stage, I have watched it several times, entirely unwillingly, and in retrospect I can honestly say that I would rather be strapped into one of those brainwashing chairs from A Clockwork Orange for a staring contest with Medusa.

It is difficult to determine whether it is the audio or the visuals that are worse. I suspect that wholeheartedly settling on either would be like deciding whether you want your left or right nostril plugging with quicklime.

In the simplest terms imaginable, this is a song - one that sounds like the theme tune to a CBeebies show about a nu-metal band comprised of anthropomorphic forest fauna - which aims to briefly illustrate the path and trajectory of Kane’s career (hence the aforementioned throwaway references to his MBE and his love of the NFL) while never straying too far from its chorus refrain of ‘Harry, Harry Kane, yeah! Harry, Harry Kane!’. Beyond this, honestly, I am at a loss.

It is catchy, granted, but then again, so is impetigo. And the lyrical and directorial choices on display here are staggeringly distressing. For instance, despite it being the product of an actual German organisation, every single German person featured is caricatured to an extent that they sound like any given one of the three little pigs from Shrek. At one point, there is a gag - and rarely does a joke actually evoke that exact physical reaction - in which Kane claims to be a ‘fashionista’ and appears on screen wearing a full suit emblazoned with the cross of St. George. Answers on a postcard, please. Earlier in the video, the striker is shown drinking a cup of tea while taking exception to the concept of Oktoberfest. This, despite him being from England, where we treat binge drinking as a national pastime, obsession, and passion.

Again, to reiterate, it is very tricky to conclusively resolve which part of the ordeal makes you want to reach inside your ear canal and scoop your weary brain out most, but a personal nadir for me was the recurring bit in which Kane is mistaken for his WWE wrestler namesake. As an aside, the man who played the Big Red Machine, Glen Jacobs, used to compete as Isaac Yankem, a deranged dentist character, prior to getting his masked burn victim gimmick off the ground. I personally think an anaesthetic-free back alley root canal from a seven foot tall diagnosable psychopath would be a preferable fate to sitting through this 94-second monstrosity of a ditty ever again.

I saw an inspirational quote on social media the other day that said something along the lines of ‘you will never meet a hater who is doing better than you’. To that end, I have to admit that by just about any metric, the Bundesliga is vastly, vastly outstripping me. But in this instance, I couldn’t care less - a proud, obstinate hater I remain, regardless.

I have nothing revelatory or witty to say as I clumsily conclude this article that I never wanted to write in the first place, but please allow me to leave you with this parting thought; never again can we allow ourselves to be subjected to such auditory atrocities from a country who unironically enjoy the music of David Hasselhoff, and who count half of Milli Vanilli among their most renowned cultural exports. Everybody involved in this video should be deeply, deeply ashamed of themselves. Goodbye.