Fly Like an Eagle

I’m not, by any stretch of the imagination, a sports fan. However even the most curmudgeonly among us would have to acknowledge the truly remarkable achievement of Team GB at the recent Olympics. Their historic medal haul is only to be applauded – and the countless millions invested in British sport in recent years (thanks mostly to our national lottery) certainly seems to have paid off. No doubt we’ll see what – if any – difference this will make to participation in sport as a whole and to the overall health and wellbeing of the country, but the feelgood factor cannot be denied.

Purely co-incidentally, earlier this week we sat down and watched Eddie the Eagle, the almost entirely fictitious tale of Michael ‘Eddie’ Edwards, the British skier who in 1988 became the first competitor since 1929 to represent Great Britain in Olympic ski jumping. The movie itself, not unlike director Dexter Fletcher’s earlier Sunshine on Leith, is a pleasant enough, unchallenging watch but you’ll learn more about Mr Edwards by reading his entry on Wikipedia than watching it.

Unfortunately our Eddie’s recording career was completely ignored by the movie (and barely gets a mention on Wikipedia). Mr Edwards recorded two singles, the first being the better-known Fly Eddie, Fly/Straight to the Top which was released in the UK in 1988 (on Fly Records, catalogue number Eagle 1). I have a vague recollection of seeing him mime to this on Top of the Pops or some similar programme, but it does not appear to have made the British singles charts (according to Eddie’s biography, Eddie the Eagle: My Story it was on Terry Wogan’s early evening chat show Wogan). Unperturbed, three years later Eddie made another record – this time in Finnish!

Reading Suomi phonetically off idiot boards, Eddie recorded Mun Nimeni On Eetu/Eddien Siivellä, which roughly translates as My Name Is Eetu/On Eddie’s Wing. Naturally, it is this coupling that I present to you today. This utterly ridiculous 45 was issued by the Finnish label AXR in 1991; a year later Eddie was forced to declare bankruptcy. I’m sure the two events are unrelated. According to Rohan Candappa’s book Rules Britannia: The 101 Essential Questions of Britishness Answered Mun Nimeni On Eetu was a number two hit in Finland, but Eddie decided to completely gloss over this in his own biography. I wonder why?

Enjoy!