Chart Position: #6
Last year's Worst Songs position: unranked
The anarcho-punk, nine-piece Chumbawamba endured the cries of “sellout” when they signed to EMI in 1997 – particularly when they had recorded a song for a compilation called "Fuck EMI" nine years earlier. (I suppose its easier to fuck EMI if you're in bed with them.) The resulting album was Tubthumper, a politically-charged dance record featuring their only hit, the title track.
"Tubthumping" (the term refers to politicians giving long-winded speeches) was a call to arms for British youth. The song subtly suggests that "pissing the night away" with alcohol and nostalgia was just going to get you knocked down by your oppressors. It's got a beat, and you can overthrow your government to it!
Unfortunately, the song was co-opted by the American masses as a fun drinking song (with a dirty word in it! yeah!) placing it along side “Born in the USA” and “The Future’s So Bright I Gotta Wear Shades” as one of the more misunderstood pop songs of the last twenty-five years. And yeah, the repeated "I get knocked down but I get up again" phrase annoyed the hell out of us -- but like any good political rallying cry, we remember it years later.
Fun Fact: In protest of the “We are the World”-type all-star charity recordings, Chumbawamba released an album in 1986 titled Pictures of Starving Children Sell Records.
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