It’s the soundtrack of the summer season. Every July, the theme track to ITV’s Tour de France protection turns into one of the crucial performed songs in British residing rooms. You’ll be acquainted with it, I’m positive – you possibly can most likely hear it in your head now. It begins with a number of midi notes, then comes a swooshing sound, earlier than the anthemic accordion melody erupts. Da DA da DA DA DA DA.
There are few songs you would play for 3 weeks on repeat and by no means tire of – ITV’s Tour theme is one among them. That’s as a result of it’s greater than a track; it symbolises the beginning of the largest bike race on the planet, the second the season has been constructing as much as, and summer season afternoons spent on the couch. When performed after an advert break, it additionally brings a welcome finish to plugs for donkey sanctuaries and cremation providers. It’s, to place it in frequent parlance, a correct feel-good tune.
So, in homage to the game’s nice jingle, I did some digging and tracked down its maker: a Surrey-based music producer referred to as Jeff Ashitey.
The story begins greater than 20 years in the past. On the time, Ashitey was in his late thirties, flicking via the channels, when he got here throughout the theme track for ITV’s MotoGP protection.
“I believed, ‘This music is crap’,” he says. “I acquired in contact with the folks doing the manufacturing on it, and mentioned, ‘You understand what, I’ve acquired an important rock act, I’ve acquired an important monitor, and I reckon you’d would really like it.’
Ashitey was proper. “They beloved it,”, he says, “after which they acquired the highlights reveals for the Tour de France, they usually got here again to me and mentioned, ‘Might you do it?’”
The most recent race content material, interviews, options, evaluations and skilled shopping for guides, direct to your inbox!
In 2001, Ashitey gathered with a sound engineer and a French accordionist in a flat in south London to place the track collectively. The melody, he says, got here alive “organically”.
“It got here from us sitting in a room,” he recollects. “As soon as we put the accordion down, it type of steered it in a course. It grew by itself.”
For years, followers have puzzled if different songs served as inspiration behind Ashitey’s tune. Some likened the melody to ‘Street to Nowhere’ by Speaking Heads, others to ‘Enola Homosexual’ by Orchestral Manoeuvres within the Darkish.
The fact is it got here from neither, Ashitey explains. He had simply completed working with the label behind Darude’s 1999 hit Sandstorm, and was “actually in that dance thoughts”, he says. “That’s type of what impressed the monitor. It’s acquired fairly a dance-y factor to it as effectively.”
The completed undertaking was named ‘Beat Route’ – a meaningless play on phrases – and the manufacturing was over in a few weeks.
Ashitey minimize collectively the grasp monitor, including chainwheel noises he discovered on-line, and recording different “bike bits” he merged deep into the combo. He additionally trimmed down shorter variations for use for the advert breaks, and later, a ringtone, which rose to 3rd within the iTunes ringtone charts in 2019.
The track was successful. Tasked with following Pete Shelley’s dreamy Tour theme for Channel 4, Ashitey had triumphed.
Was he shocked by how effectively it was obtained? “It didn’t even happen to me that it could actually resonate with numerous cyclists,” he says. “It wasn’t till [my wife] Daybreak went to work for Biking Weekly that I realised it had grow to be the Match of the Day for cyclists.”
Ever since, at any time when the Tour will get underway, Ashitey makes positive he’s in entrance of the tv to listen to the accordion’s first notes.
“I’ll most likely watch it extra this 12 months, purely as a result of it’s the final 12 months,” he says, earlier than his tone shifts, and the realisation kicks in. “I don’t need it to die. I don’t need it to simply disappear. It represents the Tour, and particularly for lots of British individuals who don’t essentially have Eurosport or TNT.
“I’d love to have the ability to do one thing else with it,” he provides. Happily, he can.
Now in his early-sixties, Ashitey continues to work within the music business, managing acts and placing on reveals. Crucially, he explains, he has retained the rights to Beat Route, which he can proceed to promote as he pleases.
“I’ve made a number of quid out of it,” he says, holding again the figures. “They all the time used to snicker at Daybreak within the workplace coming as much as the Tour, saying, ‘The place are you happening vacation this 12 months together with your cash?’”
The royalties may quickly run out, however the notes of the accordion will dwell on. Flip up the quantity a number of additional notches when Beat Route comes on this month. It would effectively be the final time you hear it.