It begins with a spare, pulsing electro beat, as if pacing the centre circle before kick-off. When it repeats, another layer drops, then another, the tension thickening bar by bar. Next comes the voice: deadpan and insouciant, yet capable of soaring.The lyrics, their ennui thick with irony, name-check Kenny McLean, Kieran Tierney and others, reckoning with decades of Scottish footballing failures and a controversial World Cup held in North America (“The USA kinda sucks but we’ve got to go there anyway...”).No, JJ Bull’s “The Very Unofficial Scotland World Cup Song” isn’t your average football anthem – that genre of belting singalongs and misty-eyed optimism; of “Three Lions” and its 30 years of hurt; of New Order’s “World in Motion” and that John Barnes rap; of Fat Les bellowing “Vindaloo”, all terrace swagger and seven-pints-down bedlam.And yet Bull’s song has taken hold. His stately, unhurried unspooling of the words “Scott McTominay” – before the short, hoarse rasp of “with a bicycle kick” – is the unexpected sound of World Cup 2026. Launched in March across Instagram and Spotify, it has blown up in the past few weeks, drawing the attention of Sky Sports News and Talk Sport. Quite right, too. It’s undoubtedly the best football song of the summer. “The past month has been absolutely wild,” says Bull, an Aberdeen fan who has just got back from two days in Boston, where he flew with his girlfriend to soak up the World Cup atmosphere. While he never made it inside a stadium – the tickets were too dear – he had a ball. Hundreds of people stopped him in the street. “Everyone was taking photos with us, and giving us beers,” the 40-year-old says, grinning. Conehead: JJ Bull went to Boston to soak up the atmosphere (Adele Bagg)The Scotland song is the latest in a long line of football tracks written by Bull. For a few years now, his online shtick has been electro-balladry about players: plaintive paeans to the cult and the half-remembered. Comical though the songs are, Bull says most of them have something else going on underneath. Take “If Bergkamp Can”, from his new album “Out Of Your League”, which enlists the Dutch playmaker to recommend taking chances in life. “You see the through balls – you’ve got to have a go. You might lose the ball, but you’ve got to go for it.” The footballers, in other words, are a Trojan horse.Then there’s “John McGinn Has the Power of the Dinosaurs”, in which Bull sings, “If a meteor tried to hit John McGinn, he would simply head it away.” UEFA came to his house at 7am one day and filmed him performing it, then took the clip to McGinn himself. The midfielder knew exactly who he was. “Oh, I’ve heard this,” Bull reports him saying. “It’s that guy, JJ Bull, isn’t it?” The players he mentions in his new song have said nothing to him yet – “well media trained”, he reckons, “to just leave it the f*** alone.”Born in Aberdeen, Bull moved to London 13 years ago to pursue a career in television, before becoming a football journalist for The Telegraph and, these days, a tactical analyst for The Athletic. But music has always bubbled away in the background; he has been in bands since he was 15, accruing a few EPs and albums of more heartfelt, Frightened Rabbit-inspired solo material. He was once runner-up for best newcomer at the Scottish Alternative Music Awards.'Out of Your League' is JJ Bull's new album (Supplied)Enjoy unlimited access to 100 million ad-free songs and podcasts with Amazon MusicSign up now for a 30-day free trial. Terms apply.Try for freeADVERTISEMENT. If you sign up to this service we will earn commission. This revenue helps to fund journalism across The Independent.Enjoy unlimited access to 100 million ad-free songs and podcasts with Amazon MusicSign up now for a 30-day free trial. Terms apply.Try for freeADVERTISEMENT. If you sign up to this service we will earn commission. This revenue helps to fund journalism across The Independent.These days, he livestreams shows, making up songs on the spot over a loop station, and it was in that spirit that the Scotland song arrived – or rather, by his account, simply appeared. “All of a sudden, out of nowhere, I just had this whole song in my head,” he explains. “It was just there – the lyrics, everything – downloaded.”Performed live, his songs have taken on new meanings. At a recent festival in Bristol, fully committing to the bit with a kilt and sunglasses on, Bull went on at half past noon expecting the room to be empty. It wasn’t. Far from it. To his astonishment, a packed crowd were there singing all his words back to him. The organiser was involved with Welsh rap troupe Goldie Lookin’ Chain, and asked him to support them on tour this autumn. “I still don’t think it's real,” he says.I ask Bull where he stands on “Three Lions”, the Baddiel, Skinner and Lightning Seeds anthem that has soundtracked English tournament heartache since 1996. He loves it, as it happens. “‘Three Lions’ is amazing,” he says. “The best songs, I don’t know if you’ve ever noticed this, they’re just versions of other songs.” That one, to his ear, is pure Slade: “‘Three Lions on a shirt’ – it’s ‘Merry Xmas Everybody’, 100 per cent.”“The Very Unofficial Scotland World Cup Song”, I suggest, has more than a little of LCD Soundsystem about it – that same world-weary sprechgesang of “Losing My Edge”. Bull doesn’t resist the comparison; if anything, he leans in. “There’s something in there,” he says. “If it’s my subconscious writing it, it’s going to be someone else’s. I’m stealing his edge.” He has met the band’s frontman James Murphy once, years ago, at Glasgow’s Sub Club after an LCD gig at the Barras, and bowled over, pressed an album into his hands. “James, I love you,” he remembers blurting: “It’s s****, you won’t like it, but there you go.”As for Scotland’s chances tonight, Bull is, well, bullish. “Weirdly, I feel like Brazil is the one we think we can get something from,” he says. “Something about it feels right.” Not that he puts much stock in the hunch: “I had this exact same feeling before Germany pumped us about 18-0 in the Euros.” He pauses. “We probably will beat Brazil, yeah.”JJ Bull is touring with Goldie Lookin’ Chain from September to November 2026, tickets available on DiceHis new album ‘Out Of Your League’ is out now