The Band: Chumbawamba
The Hit: Tubthumping
It’s not uncommon for a “one-hit wonder” artist to get their only hit by covering another artist’s song.
For example, Alien Ant Farm and Sinead O’Connor both scored their only hit by covering a Michael Jackson song and Prince song, respectively. In these cases, the listening public might get an idea of what the artist sounds like, but we don’t know anything about their lyrical style or if they can write their own music.
“Tubthumping” by Chumbawamba takes this to a whole other level. “Tubthumping” is an original song with lyrics and music written by the band that still manages to give a completely false impression of what the band is actually like.
“Tubthumping”, from the similarly titled Tubthumper album, is more commonly remembered by its refrain (“I get knocked down/But I get up again/You’re never gonna keep me down”). It’s also commonly remembered as a song that gets blasted out of speakers at sports arenas when the home team is down a few points. If that’s your only exposure to Chumbawamba, you might be surprised to learn that its members are all political activists who spend most of their time speaking out against fascism and producing albums with titles like Pictures of Starving Children Sell Records and Never Mind the Ballots.
You might also be surprised to learn that, not only was Tubthumper the band’s eighth album, they are actually still performing today after nearly 25 years as a band. Given that most people only know them for a silly song they released in 1997, it is my humble opinion that we ought to ask: what happened next?
The Album: Tubthumper
My first impulse is to say that “Tubthumping” is the only song from Tubthumper that doesn’t deal with a specific social ill or injustice. That would give you a good idea of just how much that song misrepresents the band… but it’s not really true.
The liner notes for “Tubthumping” make it clear that it isn’t just about getting drunk and shouting from the top of the bar.
Or rather, it IS about getting drunk and shouting from the top of the bar, but shouting because you’ve got reason to shout. Most of Chumbawamba’s songs are about people dealing with political injustice and the flaws of society, and when you’re facing that sort of thing, there are going to be plenty of times when you feel tired, angry and in serious need of a drink. You don’t need to be a member of an anarcho-punk band to know what it feels like to “get knocked down.”
“Tubthumping” has a reputation as a silly song, but it’s no less socially relevant than the rest of the band’s material… even if it isn’t quite as “in-your-face.”
Though it might be lyrically unique, “Tubthumping” sounds like a lot of Chumbawamba’s early songs: a big blast of punk-ish noise with plenty of drums and horns. Vocals are just as likely to be shouted as they are to be sung and the whole thing is topped off with a few samples.
Sampling is a big part of the Tubthumper album, with up to two minutes of pieced-together music and quotes in between songs.
There’s also an electro/dance influence running through a lot of the songs. “Drip, Drip, Drip” features a combination of drums and synth that almost sounds like Ace of Base. I doubt that’s what Chumbawamba was going for, but I certainly don’t mind.
“Mary, Mary” has a beat that you could almost imagine hearing in the club, but the loud, crunching guitars and lyrics about the Virgin Mary would make for an awkward few minutes on the dance floor.
Really, “Tubthumping” isn’t that much of an outlier in Chumbawamba’s catalogue. It’s clear from their music that they have a certain pop sensibility—they can craft a catchy melody like nobody’s business—they’ve just always chosen to use it in service of a political message. “Tubthumping” was a hit because it was an instance in which the message wasn’t too political.
What Happened Next:
Aside from forever guarantee them inclusion on lists of “Top One-Hit Wonders” and “Most Annoying Songs”, the success of “Tubthumping” didn’t really change anything for Chumbawamba. Their next album, WYSISWYG was even more overtly political, unsurprisingly produced no hits, and eventually caused them to leave their label.
The band pressed on as they always had, finding new labels and incorporating a folk-music sound into their songs. Eventually, they slimmed down the band to a five-person group and are now making music that, if you played it for someone who only knew “Tubthumping”, would make them ask, “Wait, this is that Chumbawamba?”
Their most recent album, ABCDEFG, is a great demonstration of the “new” Chumbawamba. There’s no shouting; the vocals are all beautifully song, rivaling any A-capella group in arrangement and texture. Electronic drums and synth are completely absent, and sampling is at a minimum. It’s the kind of music you’d listen to during brunch on Sunday instead of at a bar on Saturday night—about as far as you could get from “Tubthumping”, in other words.
However, Chumbawamba is still as political as they’ve ever been. Even in ABCDEFG, a concept album about music, they touch on subjects like the practice of torture in the Iraq war, the racism of folk-music preservation societies, and a concentration camp survivor who interrupted a performance of Wagner by swinging a football rattle.
The bands previous record, which has no sort of restrictive “concept”, is an even better example. Though it’s typically referred to as The Boy Bands Have Won, the full title is actually The Boy Bands Have Won, and All the Copyists and the Tribute Bands and the TV Talent Show Producers Have Won, If We Allow Our Culture to Be Shaped by Mimicry, Whether from Lack of Ideas or From Exaggerated Respect. You Should Never Try to Freeze Culture. What You Can Do Is Recycle That Culture. Take Your Older Brother’s Hand-Me-Down Jacket and Re-Style It, Re-Fashion It to the Point Where It Becomes Your Own. But Don’t Just Regurgitate Creative History, or Hold Art and Music and Literature as Fixed, Untouchable and Kept Under Glass. The People Who Try to ‘Guard’ Any Particular Form of Music Are, Like the Copyists and Manufactured Bands, Doing It the Worst Disservice, Because the Only Thing That You Can Do to Music That Will Damage It Is Not Change It, Not Make It Your Own. Because Then It Dies, Then It’s Over, Then It’s Done, and the Boy Bands Have Won.
So, yes, this is definitely still “that” Chumbawamba.
