Forever stuck somewhere in the top ten on our list of "Where the hell did this come from?" songs and probably just as high on the "What the hell does this mean?" list was Chumbawamba, an abnormality that arrived on a preview disc one Tuesday afternoon. It was new. It was different. It was played continuously for far too long by those of us who bit into its chant-like charm – myself included. Wisely, a few of the more seasoned students took it upon themselves to actually find out just what the hell Tubthumping was and what a tubthumper did – probably using the information to impress their friends during their music shifts.
So contagious was the anthemic chorus that, a month or so later in my guise as Production Director, I took it upon myself to edit together a version of the song containing nothing but the chorus – for three minutes we played the "I get knocked down" bit over and over and over.... Why did we do this to ourselves?
A lot of people liked the video for this one, too. In case you forgot (or were trying to), it had the Chumbawambians in a bar setting with some singing, some dancing, some playing instruments and one – the one everyone at the station seemed to wonder about – was shouting his lines through a megaphone. We all thought that was odd. Odd, too, were the lyrics that no one could understand, making them simultaneously mundane and profane to our untrained ears. Surely she wasn’t singing, "pissing the night away," was she?
We weren’t the only ones to milk that song. Months later I was driving home from college and, far out of range of my station, found myself listening to a commercial modern rock station. They too were "pissing the night away;" as the song faded into oblivion the DJ announced, quite proudly I might add, words to the effect that his station was the first station in the area, or in town, or whatever geographic region, to play Tubthumping. I had to laugh out loud at that comment because it was wholly unnecessary. No station should have to brag or remind anyone they were the first to inundate Tubthumping across an area. That’s as bad as a station declaring themselves "Your Official Madonna station" – which I once heard on another station during the late-1980s during her Who’s That Girl phase.
Chumbawamba originally formed in 1982 in the UK and was unheard in America until Tubthumping hit the airwaves in 1997 and have released albums in the subsequent years – though nothing as memorable.
Trivia: the album version of the song opens with a sample of dialogue from the movie Brassed Off: "Truth is I thought it mattered. I thought that music mattered. But does it? Bollocks! Not compared to how people matter."
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Tubthumping
(Chumbawamba)
Chumbawamba
From the album Tubthumper
1997
We'll be singing
When we're winning
We'll be singing
I get knocked down
But I get up again
You're never going to keep me down
Pissing the night away
Pissing the night away
He drinks a whisky 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 better times:
"Oh Danny Boy
Danny Boy
Danny Boy..."
I get knocked down
But I get up again
You're never going to keep me down
Pissing the night away
Pissing the night away
He drinks a whisky 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 better times:
"Don't cry for me
Next door neighbour..."
I get knocked down
But I get up again
You're never going to keep me down
We'll be singing
When we're winning
We'll be singing
