Has it been hours, minutes, or days? Wads of 2-ply toilet paper are wedged in my ear holes to staunch the bleeding. In trying to understand which song is supposed to bring Scotland together ahead of next weekend, I’ve found myself down a cacophonic World Cup song rabbit hole.

Like a typical virus, the race to create a World Cup song for Scotland has spread across the internet. It feels like every day my inbox pings with a new press release dedicated to a World Cup “football anthem”. On TikTok, there’s a boy band doing backflips in kilts on the Royal Mile; on X/Twitter, it's all lads and guitars. I’m sure your dentist will be next to release their Tartan Army ballad. Your barista’s is already on SoundCloud.

I can’t put my finger on it, but there is something unnerving about folk singer Calum MacPhail’s Bonnie Wee Team. Irn-Bru’s ‘We’re made in Scotland from Girders’ is a star-studded, ear-splitting advertisement for the other national drink. Belle and Sebastian’s It Only Takes One Lion might make one wish that we never qualified in the first place.

Then there’s JJ Bull’s Very Unofficial Scotland World Cup Song (bread and circuses) - probably the best contender. Or Limmy’s techno rendition of Scotland the Brave. That’s because the inception of both is rooted in internet culture or in on the joke, so to speak.

World Cup songs are a case study in how culture breaks when you try to manufacture it. There is no official SFA song, so the battle to be the official, unofficial World Cup tune for Scotland is ramping up. Every artist and their granny is trying to clamber onto this gravy train, and it all seems so futile. The official unofficial anthem will be........

© Herald Scotland