Song of the Day — September 17

Chumbawamba — “Tubthumping”

Sep 17, 2020

Chumbawamba — Tubthumping (EMI/Universal)

17.September.2020
Chumbawamba
“Tubthumping”
1997

That’s right; this is the “I get knocked down … whiskey drink, lager drink, etc.” song.

During the summer of 1997, the song “Tubthumping” was as ubiquitous as the bubbling talk about Bill Clinton and his relations with a particular intern.

Along with “Who Let the Dogs Out?” this may be one of the best songs to play if you want to get a wedding party started.

Believe it or not, “Tubthumping” was off the band’s Chumbawamba (more on them in a bit), eighth studio album.

The band was formed in 1982 and drew its influences from bands like the Fall, PiL, Wire, and Adam and the Ants. Chumbawamba soon became one of the leading bands of the 1980s anarcho-punk movement — punk rock that promotes anarchism.

While Chumbawamba’s collective political views were often described as anarchist, it makes their career choice perplexing.

The music industry is built almost exclusively on exploitation and subjugation and disrupting that continues to be a Sisyphean task.

Nonetheless, the band’s anarchistic philosophy embraced issues including:

animal rights
pacifism/anti-war
class struggle
Marxism
feminism
gay liberation
pop culture
anti-fascism

In 1986, Chumbawamba released their first full-length album, Pictures of Starving Children Sell Records.

The album offered up a rather scathing critique of the Live Aid concert organized by Bob Geldof. The concert helped shine a light on world hunger.

Their second album, in 1987, was equally unsubtle — Never Mind the Ballots…Here’s the Rest of Your Lives.

A play on the famous Sex Pistols album, this record was released to coincide with the UK’s general election that year. Conceptually, the album questioned the validity of the British democratic system.

Over the ensuing years, the band dipped into techno music and the rave culture. Eventually, they moved away from the anarcho-punk movement and embraced a pop sensibility.

By 1997, Chumbawamba had embraced some elements of capitalism when they signed a recording contract with EMI Records. “Tubthumping” would be the first single from their major-label debut, Tubthumper.

There isn’t much subtext to the song. According to guitarist Boff Whalley, the song is about “the resilience of ordinary people”:

“At the time we lived near a great pub called the Fforde Grene in Leeds. Our next-door neighbour, who was Irish, would come home drunk every weekend from there and try and get into his house, fall over and shout for his wife — it was a weekly ritual.”

Every song is inspired by something or someone. And I suppose the Irish element contributes to the “Oh Danny Boy” refrain in the first verse.

The song was a monster success, peaking at #2 on the UK Singles Chart and #6 on the US Billboard Singles Chart and topping the charts in Australia, Canada, Ireland, Italy, and New Zealand.

CRITICS:

#12 on Rolling Stone’s list of “Most Annoying Songs.”
Robert Christgau dispelled his usual nonsensical review: “Tub as platform, tub as cornucopia, tub as slop bucket.”
Stephen Thomas Erlewine at AllMusic wrote of the album Tubthumper: “The group [is] downplaying its notorious political radicalism in favor of pop and dance. Still, there’s a handful of cuts scattered throughout the record that make the album worthwhile…”

For all of the success that “Tubthumping” brought the band, they still never shied away from their punk roots and kicking up dirt:

While promoting the album, Tubthumping, vocalist Alice Nutter was quoted in the British music paper Melody Maker as saying, “Nothing can change the fact that we like it when cops get killed.”
In early 1998, Nutter appeared on the show Politically Incorrect and advised fans of their music who could not afford to buy their CDs to steal them from large chains such as HMV and Virgin.
At the 1998 BRIT Awards, vocalist Danbert Nobacon dumped a jug of water over UK Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott, who was in the audience.
The band turned down $1.5 million from Nike to use the song “Tubthumping” in a World Cup advertisement.
In 2002, General Motors paid Chumbawamba a sum of either $70,000 or $100,000, to use the song “Pass It Along” for a commercial. The band then gave the money to the anti-corporate activist groups Indymedia and CorpWatch, who used the money to launch an information and environmental campaign against GM.

Throughout their career, the band had a fluid line-up, with over two dozen people rotating in and out. But in 2012, after 30 years of raising hell, the core members of Chumbawamba, Boff Whalley, Danbert Nobacon, and Lou Watts folded up shop.

Whatever the origin story may be behind “Tubthumping,” the fact remains that it is a song that’s more than a bit pugnacious and does speak to the resiliency of people. Chumbawamba accomplished what anarcho-punk never will …universality.

It’s that universality that makes “Tubthumping” timeless …and always a sing-a-long whether you’re at a wedding or sporting event or wherever. I might advise against playing the song at a funeral, for apparent reasons.

Tubthumping

I get knocked down, but I get up again
You are never gonna keep me down
I get knocked down, but I get up again
You are never gonna keep me down
I get knocked down, but I get up again
You are never gonna keep me down
I get knocked down, but I get up again
You are never gonna keep me down

He drinks a Whiskey drink, he drinks a Vodka drink
He drinks a Lager drink, he drinks a Cider drink
He sings the songs that remind him of the good times
He sings the songs that remind him of the best times
(Oh Danny Boy, Danny Boy, Danny Boy)

Chorus x 15!
I get knocked down, (we’ll be singing)
but I get up again
You are never gonna keep me down (when we’re winning)

tub-thump·ing

/ˈtəb ˌTHəmpiNG/

informal•derogatory

adjective: tubthumping

expressing opinions in a loud and violent or dramatic manner.
“a tub-thumping speech”

noun: tubthumping

the expression of opinions in a loud or dramatic way.

Song of the Day — September 17

Chumbawamba — “Tubthumping”

Chumbawamba — “Tubthumping”

CRITICS:

Tubthumping

tub-thump·ing

Discussion about this post