Folk song that carried Wales to the World Cup
Stirring lyrics of Yma o Hyd are the perfect fit for a team punching above their weight on the international stage
It requires only the right tune, and right moment, for a song to become an anthem for supporters
On the morning of the 2007 Super Bowl, a few hours before Prince was due to take the stage in a muchanticipated half-time show, the organisers and producers of the event woke up in a panic. A brutal storm had struck Miami, and the rain was relentless.
Nervously, they called Prince to see what impact the downpour might have on his performance. But the singer, the story goes, responded only with a simple question of his own: “Can you make it rain harder?”
It is a tale that came to mind on Sunday afternoon, when the summer rain drove into the Cardiff City Stadium like waves crashing against the shore.
Prince knew that such conditions only added to the emotion and drama of a performance, and it was the same in Cardiff as Dafydd Iwan, a 78-year-old folk singer and nationalist politician – who was imprisoned in the 1970s after daubing Welsh slogans on English road signs – grabbed his microphone in the moments before Wales’s World Cup play-off against Ukraine.
Iwan’s subsequent rendition of Yma o Hyd, a patriotic Welsh song released in 1983, will live long in the memories of those who heard it, felt it and joined in with it.
The “Red Wall” of 30,000 supporters served as Iwan’s choir, bellowing the words with outstretched arms and confirming the song as the unoffi- cial anthem of the national team.
Even for those with no emotional or biological connection to Wales, it was a spine-tingling experience. The weather only enhanced the power of the moment, with Iwan standing firm against the gusts of wind and swirling rain. When he performed the same song ahead of the play-off semi-final against Austria in March, tears rolled down his cheeks. This time, there was no telling whether it was the emotion of it all, or the weather, or both.
Yma o Hyd is a song of defiance and survival, of Welsh culture and language. It is also a celebration of life as a small, fiercely proud nation. Iwan wrote it at a time when, he has said, there was a sense that people were “losing Wales” amid economic turmoil and social change. Four years before its release, in 1979, around 80 per cent of voters had chosen against forming a Welsh parliament.
The lyrics reflect the desire of Iwan, who was the president of Plaid Cymru from 2003 to 2010, to reignite the concept of Welshness. The words of the chorus (“Er gwaetha pawb a phopeth, ry’n ni yma o hyd”) translate to “despite everyone and everything, we are still here” and have come to symbolise the Wales football team as they continue to punch above their weight.
Iwan was on the pitch after the final whistle on Sunday, as the players and coaches celebrated qualification for their first World Cup since 1958. They sang Yma o Hyd as one, with Iwan breaking off between lines to shake the hands of the exhausted players. Proud, defiant, booming: Yma o Hyd ticks every box as a stirring sporting anthem, and is regularly heard at the stadiums of Wrexham and the Scarlets rugby side.
For the national team, it is a more recent addition, driven by defender Chris Gunter, who last year became the first male player to reach 100 caps for his country.
“Chris Gunter started it,” Wales manager Rob Page said this year. “We played it every day before training and on the coach, and that is something we have now got as our anthem. It is a big part of what we are all about. The song is very poignant. We can all relate to it. We are all passionate Welsh people who love our country.”
It sometimes requires only the right tune, and indeed the right moments, for a song to become an anthem for supporters. Neil Diamond’s Sweet Caroline became the soundtrack of England’s run to the final of the European Championship last summer, for example, despite it being an American love song.
But for Wales, there is added significance to their new anthem. The rousing tune and thundering vocals provide much of its power, but they are accompanied by a sense of national pride enhanced by the meaning of the lyrics. For players and fans, it is more than a song. It is a message, and one that will be relayed in Qatar this year: Wales are still here.