Sheffield Wednesday Songs and Famous Chants: From Hi Ho Sheffield Wednesday to Singing the Blues

Sheffield Wednesday have been around long enough to have a songbook the size of a small church hymn book. Founded in 1867, the Owls are regularly billed as the third-oldest professional football club in the world and boast a fanbase with that much mileage on the clock that it has had plenty of time to settle on what gets sung and what gets quietly dropped. Recent years at Hillsborough have been turbulent, what with the ownership rows and points deductions under Dejphon Chansiri, but the noise the Kop can still make when something happens on the pitch hasn’t really been up for debate.

Anybody who has stood on the South Stand for a Steel City derby knows that the place doesn’t need much encouragement. What follows isn’t intended to be the complete songbook, because no such list could ever exist. Lots of chants come and go with whichever player happens to be receiving love from the supporters and plenty of stuff gets retired when a new manager takes charge or a fresh rivalry flares up. What we’ve tried to pick out are the songs that supporters of the Blue and White Army keep coming back to, year after year, with a few of the more recent additions thrown in for good measure.

Hi Ho Sheffield Wednesday

Ask most non-Wednesday fans to name a song the Owls sing and this is the one they’ll probably land on. It is an adaptation of Hi Ho Silver Lining, the 1967 Jeff Beck single that became a wedding-disco staple before football crowds got hold of it. Plenty of other sets of fans use a version of the same tune, but the Wednesday rendition has a life of its own at S6, where it gets a regular run-out before kick-off and after goals are scored at Hillsborough. You can hear it on the Wednesday terraces most weeks, thanks to the fact that the chorus is straightforward enough that the away end has even been known to join in by the second time round:

You’re everywhere and nowhere baby,

That’s where you’re at.

Running down a bumpy hillside,

in your hippy hat.

Flying across the country

And getting fat.

Saying everything is groovy,

When your tyres are flat…

And it’s hi ho Sheffield Wednesday!

No matter where you go now, baby,

I see your sun is shining

But I won’t make a fuss, though it’s obvious.

Flies are in your pea soup, baby,

They’re waving at me.

Anything you want is yours now,

Only nothing’s for free.

Lies are gonna get you someday,

Just wait and see,

So open up your beach umbrella,

While you’re watching TV…

And it’s hi ho Sheffield Wednesday!

No matter where you go now, baby,

I see your sun is shining

But I won’t make a fuss, though it’s obvious.

(Repeat)

And it’s Sheffield Wednesday

This is the Wednesday version of the chant that gives this site its name. Like a lot of clubs, the Owls have made the ‘By Far the Greatest Team’ song their own and it tends to surface when the team is winning comfortably or has just done something the away end wasn’t expecting. As with countless clubs up and down the land, the supporters either don’t see the irony in the fact that the side that they’re watching are demonstrably not the best ever or they just don’t care. Regardless, it is a good way of adding to the atmosphere wherever the Owls are playing.

The structure is so familiar there’s no point overcomplicating it, with the following being what the supporters sing:

And it’s Sheffield Wednesday,

Sheffield Wednesday FC:

We’re by far the greatest team,

The world has ever seen!

We Love You Wednesday

There are a few different versions of ‘We Love You Wednesday’ doing the rounds, but the one Owls fans of a certain age tend to refer to most of the time is the Paul Carrack release from 1984. Carrack, of Ace and later Mike + The Mechanics fame, recorded the track to mark the club’s promotion back to the old First Division and it was sold around Sheffield rather than nationally, which makes it bordering on obscure outside the city. On match days, supporters dispense with most of the production and just sing the central part, which sits comfortably alongside the more generic versions that other clubs use.

The bit you’ll hear in the ground tends to run along these lines:

We love you Wednesday, we do,

Oh Wednesday, we love you.

Hello, Hello, We Are the Wednesday Boys

This one isn’t exactly polite about the other lot and that is rather the point. ‘Hello, Hello, We Are the Wednesday Boys’ is one of those derby-flavoured chants that has been knocking about since the 1970s, occasionally tidied up for family-friendly broadcast and almost never tidied up on the actual terraces. Clips from Hillsborough confirm it is still very much in circulation, in spite of the rather tasteless reference to being willing to kill people who support Sheffield United.

Here is what supporters sing:

Hello, hello,

We are the Wednesday boys!

Hello, hello,

We are the Wednesday boys!

And if you are a United fan,

Surrender or you’ll die.

‘Cos we all follow the Wednesday!

Honolulu Wednesday

Not every Wednesday song is decades old. ‘Honolulu Wednesday’ is, but it is one of those chants that picked up steam during the away-day grind of the last couple of seasons. It is borrowed from a tune that’s been doing the rounds in English football for a while now, the sort of thing that lends itself to being sung by a few hundred travelling supporters squashed into the corner of someone else’s ground. The lyrics aren’t overly complicated, which helps add to the atmosphere as everyone can join in. They don’t need to be, of course, because the point of a song like this is to be loud and a bit daft when the away end needs picking up:

Honolulu Wednesday,

Where d’ya get those eyes?

Honolulu Wednesday,

In Paradise!

Wednesday ‘til I Die

You’ll find a version of ’Til I Die at most football grounds in England and Wednesday’s is much the same as everyone else’s, just with the obvious word swapped in. It pops up most often after a winning goal at Hillsborough, when nobody can be bothered remembering the verses to anything longer, and it goes down well at away ends because anyone who has watched football in this country for more than about a season will already know the rhythm of it.

The lyrics are about as bare-bones as it gets:

I’m Wednesday ‘til I die,

I’m Wednesday ‘til I die!

I know I am, I’m sure I am,

I’m Wednesday till I die!

Singing the Blues

If Hi Ho Sheffield Wednesday is considered to be something of an anthem for Sheffield Wednesday, ‘Singing the Blues’ is the one that Owls fans reach for whenever the local rivalry is in the air. The Wednesday version has been knocking about since the 1960s and it got something close to an official recording in 1980 when Terry Curran, who somehow managed to play for both halves of the city without forfeiting his standing on the Blue side, put it down on Norwood Records. There is a good primer on the various Wednesday-themed releases at Sheffield Home of Football that offers the full history.

The tune is taken from the Melvin Endsley song that Tommy Steele and Guy Mitchell had hits with in 1956.

It is still sung today, particularly when Sheffield United are having a rough time of it.

The relevant verse is short and to the point:

Never felt more like singing the blues,

When Wednesday win and United lose,

Oh Wednesday,

You’ve got me singing the blues!