The official anthems of recent World Cups share a clear pattern. The 2026 anthem, DNA (More Than a Game), brings together Andrea Bocelli, David Guetta, Megan Thee Stallion and EJAE, combining operatic vocals, EDM, and hip hop. Before it came Shakira twice, first with Waka Waka and its African-rooted groove, and again with Dai Dai alongside Burna Boy. There was Nicky Jam and Will Smith in 2018, the reggaeton of Pitbull in 2014, and the Latin-pop of Ricky Martin in 1998. Latin rhythm, Afrobeats, and dancefloor production aimed at a global audience. But long before South America and Africa took a stronghold on world cup anthems, there was the 1994 song, “Gloryland”.
Gloryland was the official song of the 1994 World Cup, held in the United States. It was based on the traditional spiritual Glory, Glory (Lay My Burden Down) and performed by Daryl Hall of Hall and Oates alongside the vocal ensemble Sounds of Blackness, sung at the opening ceremony as a slow gospel hymn. The melody was carried throughout by the saxophone of Snake Davis.
A gospel hymn led by saxophone would be very unlikely to win this slot today. To understand why, you have to look at what the saxophone meant in popular music in the years before 1994, and what had happened to it by the time Gloryland was recorded. You can actually read more about it in an article we wrote, called The Role of Saxophone in Film Soundtracks which documents its ascent (and descent) in Pop culture as well.
For about fifteen years, the saxophone was one of pop's signature sounds. There was a lot of hits in the late 1970s-early1980s including George Michael's Careless Whisper, Sade's Smooth Operator, Bruce Springsteen and Clarence Clemons on Born to Run, plus tracks by Men at Work, Spandau Ballet, and Duran Duran. For most of the 1980s, the common view was that a pop hit needed a sax solo. However, this did not last. TAfter peaking in the early 1980s, the number of saxophone solos in Top 40 music dropped to nearly zero by 1990 and has stayed there since. The synthesizer was a major reason. A keyboard could approximate a sax line, and one person at a machine could do the work that previously required booking, auditioning, and post-producing a session player. It was used and abused across pop culture, television and films. By the early 1990s the dance craze had taken over and the saxophone was relegated back to jazz,. In fact, Saturday Night Live was already running its "Sergio" sketch as a joke. The instrument went from highly fashionable to a punchline. Ironically, this makes Gloryland more unusual. By 1994 the saxophone craze had already ended. Gloryland came after the charts had largely moved on, as a late example of a sound that was commercially finished.
However, Gloryland was not a pop song aiming for radio play; it is a gospel hymn, and the saxophone has a long history in that tradition. Davis's playing reads less like a leftover 1980s pop sound and more like a link to American gospel and soul music. The host nation also mattered as the World Cup was held in the United States in 1994. The country's first time hosting called for an anthem that sounded American, and gospel and the saxophone both fit that criteria. The song leaned heavily into national pride for the country it was written for.
The factors that pushed the saxophone out of pop around 1990 never reversed enough to put it back at the center of a global anthem but the instrument still appears occasionally across the pop lexicon, like in Lady Gaga's work with Clarence Clemons or the odd sample in an electronic track, but always a supporting role rather than lead. The economics that favored the synthesizer in 1990 favor the laptop now, and World Cup anthems have only become more global, more rhythm-led, and more built for streaming.
So Gloryland stands as a one-off. It is not the best World Cup anthem or the most successful, but it may be the most unrepeatable. A gospel hymn built around a saxophone, made for one country in one summer. The conditions that produced it, the host nation, the gospel tradition, and the fading craze, are unlikely to line up again.
