A video of Paul Gascoigne attempting the World in Motion rap from the 1990 World Cup song has been released.
While England stars John Barnes, Peter Beardsley, Gazza, Steve McMahon, Chris Waddle and Des Walker all turned up to help with the recording of the song by New Order in 1990, Barnes was the only one given a leading vocal on the song, with his iconic rap still memorable among football fans to this day.
Barnes has since shared audio of Gazza and Beardsley attempting the rap he made so famous over 30 years ago, at a LiveScore Live Fan event.
Paul Gascoigne attempted John Barnes’ rap on World in Motion
“I’m going to play something special for you,” Barnes said at the event. “When we did that England song, there wasn’t supposed to be a rap because they’re [New Order] not a rap group.
“But [songwriter] Keith Allen quickly wrote a rap, and all six of us who were there had a go at the rap. And because I was the best, obviously I did the rap.
John Barnes shares rare, unseen footage of Paul Gascoigne performing the ‘World in Motion’ rap 🤣🎶 pic.twitter.com/2GVdTboucFMarch 21, 2025
“However, I was working about four years ago at an event where they had a sound engineer, and the sound engineer said his dad was the sound engineer live in 1990 when we did the song – and he’s got a version of Paul Gascoigne and Peter Beardsley’s attempt at the rap.”
Barnes proceeded to play both Gazza’s and Beardsley’s rap attempts to the assembled crowd, bringing to light their raps that had previously never been shown to the public.
New Order basist Peter Hook was present for those recordings, and recalled encountering a young Gascoigne to FourFourTwo last year.
“I remember Paul Gascoigne running off the pitch and getting into a Mercedes with two girls standing up through the sunroof, holding a bottle of champagne each. I thought, ‘He’s going to do well, that boy’,” Hook said.
He added: “It was two different songs: we never recorded the proper version, which was without the rap. It would have been a great New Order song – that’s why it sounds like a great football song.”
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