Liverpool’s love for Dua Lipa: Why One Kiss was all it took

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“I’ll be fuming if she doesn’t come out wearing a Liverpool jersey me, lad,” Joe Cassidy says clutching a beer on the back row of the M&S Bank Arena in Liverpool.

It is April 29 and pop sensation Dua Lipa is due to appear on stage at 9pm. It is a few minutes to and the 11,000 capacity venue situated on the banks of the river Mersey is sold out.

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Lipa, 26, is an international superstar and has brought her Future Nostalgia tour to the city. Her chart-topping and Grammy Award-winning music make her one of the most famous, most followed and most streamed artists in the world. And she has been given a very warm welcome to Liverpool, a city already close to her heart.

The connection between Liverpool supporters and the singer formed four years ago. It was May 2018 and, three years after bursting onto the music scene, Lipa was selected to play at the opening ceremony of the Champions League final in Kyiv, Ukraine, where Liverpool were playing Real Madrid.

At that time her hit song One Kiss, which was produced by Calvin Harris, was in its fifth week at No 1 in the UK and when the Londoner sang it during her set, thousands of Liverpool fans, who had been singing their hearts out all afternoon at Shevchenko Park, joined in. Videos of the moment went viral.

Months later Lipa admitted she had been nervous ahead of what was at that point the biggest performance of her career. But said the support she was shown by Liverpool fans had helped her. The bond that was forged at the Olimpiyskiy Stadium has been everlasting.

“It has an easy hook to pick up on,” says George Sephton, Anfield’s stadium announcer and DJ of over 50 years, referring to the lyrics. “So the fans took to it and it was associated with our return to the big time. Only recently has it picked up again, but the crowd are back on it.

“It was played at both Wembley finals, so it means a lot to the travelling Kop. It’s fair to say it’s nothing like any previous Anfield anthem. It belongs firmly in the 21st century. Thumping, upbeat and really different to the likes of Three Little Birds, Fields of Anfield Road and songs of their ilk.”

As Sephton says, the song has been rolled out at Wembley immediately after both the League Cup and FA Cup final victories over Chelsea. It was also played after Liverpool knocked Manchester City out of the FA Cup at the semi-final stage.

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On May 14 when Liverpool won the FA Cup, Lipa was in Paris ahead of her show the following night. Paris is, of course, the city that thousands of Liverpool fans will pour into this weekend as their team take on 2018’s opponents Real Madrid in this year’s Champions League final. It was from there that Lipa shared two videos of the scenes at Wembley with her 83.2 million followers on Instagram. The clips showed Liverpool fans in clouds of red smoke dancing and chanting away to One Kiss. An accompanying caption read: “ABSOLUTE SCENES!!!!!”

There is a mutual love and respect between the city and the singer.

Sian Bennett, a DJ and podcaster from Halewood, describes the scenes and playlist after full-time at Wembley on May 14 as “the most Scouse function room ever”. “We would have all stayed until the lights came on,” she jokes.

One month after the European Cup final in 2018, Bennett bumped into Lipa at Glastonbury festival.

“A few drinks deep I ran over and told her we all loved the Champions League final that she was a Liverpool icon, an honorary Scouser, and she’d be welcome in Liverpool any time,” Bennett recalls. “The picture went mad on Twitter and everyone was buzzing over it.

She said she loved the champions league final and she’s a red and she’s gonna have a dance with us later 🕺 #dualipa

— Sian Bennett (@sianbennett) June 28, 2019

“It goes to show that Champions League final defeat didn’t dampen our spirits,” Bennett continues. “That song should have reminded us of pain and defeat but it did quite the opposite. We weren’t finished. This was not the end of the journey. We knew it was just the beginning. It’s only fitting that we now whip the song out every time we win a cup. At one point, that tune was from one of our darkest moments. Now it’s our anthem.”

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Even though Liverpool lost 3-1 to Madrid in Kyiv the song symbolised a shared moment of togetherness just before kick-off. Its legend has built from there.

And it is not just Liverpool fans who remember the impact of the song that summer.

“I’m a blue but even I know she’s boss,” Aidan Neil, an Everton fan also seated on the back row of the arena in Liverpool, says. “The summer of 2018… it was hot every day, One Kiss came out and it was always playing. It was a proper tune.

“It reminds them (Liverpool fans) of the Kyiv final in a good way. It reminds me of the Kyiv final in a bitter way. That’s why we all love it,” the 28-year-old laughs.

“If she doesn’t mention us, I won’t be happy. I’ll be leaving a bad review,” Cassidy jokes.

Shortly after thanking fans for holding onto their tickets for two years through two pandemic postponements, Lipa did allude to the song’s cult status on Merseyside as Cassidy and others hoped she would.

“I know you guys have been keeping a few songs alive and there’s one which is an unofficial anthem,” she teased before it eventually blared out of the speakers in part three of the show.

As red and white balloons fell from the ceiling, the song was sung louder than any other off of her conveyor belt of hits.

It will always have a place in Liverpool fan culture. And, come Saturday evening in Paris, fans will be hoping they are singing it in unison again to welcome in a seventh European Cup.

(Photo: Shaun Botterill/Getty Images)