This spot was originally set aside for a review of one of the greatest African-American vocalists of all time, but the Americans foiled my plans. Voldemort announced that “A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again.” Moron-in-Waiting J.D. Vance flew all the way to Hungary to scold the Europeans for meddling in the upcoming Hungarian elections (#?&$!!!). The acting Attorney General announced that Voldemort had every right to order investigations of his enemies. After that barrage, I had no stomach for anything Nazi . . . er, American.

I’m not sure what it would take to convince a healthy majority of Americans that their leader is suffering from several psychological disorders listed in the DSM and needs to go bye-bye. Even if Voldemort posted a dick-pic on his stupid social media platform or an intrepid photographer published a picture of him chewing the carpet, his minions would rally to his defense (“What a bro!” “He needs his fiber!”), The divided opposition would do nothing of consequence: hold a few rallies, bitch about his unpresidential behavior on social media, blame it on Biden, binge on Netflix. I don’t expect his veep and his all-Republican cabinet to invoke the 25th Amendment, and even if they did, Americans would be stuck with another nut job who believes aliens are demons.

Anyway, I needed to find a substitute quickly. The first album on the schedule that caught my eye was Midnight Oil’s Red Sails in the Sunset. Alas, the cover depicts Sydney after a thermonuclear attack, and given that Voldemort’s message triggered fears of a nuclear armageddon, I thought some might find that image rather disturbing. I passed on a few lighter albums because I felt that sweet-and-lovely was inappropriate at this time. I wanted something that reflected the social consciousness and anti-war message expressed in the Oil’s album, but not something too close to home.

And there, way down in the December 13 slot, was a request made by one of my readers that was exactly what I wanted. Chumbawamba!

If you were under the impression that Chumbawamba had vanished into the ether after Tubthumper, your belief is completely understandable, as none of the eight albums that followed charted anywhere on Earth. They left EMI after the follow-up album WYSIWYG failed to chart and started their own label (Mutt) with a very limited marketing budget. In 2005, long-standing members Danbert Nobacon, Alice Nutter, Harry Hamer, and Dunstan Bruce left the band, and Chumbawamba became an acoustic quartet with long-time members Lou Watts, Boff Whaley, and Jude Abbott, with former producer Neil Ferguson joining the band.

Technically speaking, the album title is not The Boy Bands Have Won, but the 156 words that appear on the front cover, a feat that earned Chumbawama a spot in the Guinness Book of World Records. The album’s second-most noticeable oddity is that it consists of twenty-five tracks covering two sides of vinyl. This is not a result of technological progress, but a batch of very short songs: seven clock in at under a minute, six at under two minutes, and the longest track is a bit over four minutes long. The lineup expanded to a quintet with Phil “Ron” Moody on accordion; a few guest appearances from other musicians were employed for specific arrangements. The Boy Bands Have Won was released in 2008, and after one more album,  Chumbawamba announced they were throwing in the towel by the end of 2012.

Despite the lack of commercial success, the album received several positive reviews from critics. The Guardian: “The lyrics are often angry or vicious, but the instrumental and vocal harmony work is gently slick and impressive, helped along by trumpet and accordion, and by the appearance of such famous friends as Oysterband. Chumbawumba are still one of the great English originals.” New Internationalist: Musically, this is pleasurable, proficient stuff – punchy and catchy with winsome vocals from Lou Watts.” All Music: “The anger might not be as overt as it was in the mid-’90s, but it’s still there, and they now seem to thoroughly understand how to mix pop — of the acoustic folk variety, of course — and politics in the most natural way. Perhaps surprisingly for a band that’s been around for so long, but one of the most satisfying discs of their career.” Some of the songs are modifications of traditionals, others are based on samples from other Chumbawamba songs, but most of the tracks qualify as completely new material. The album covers a wide range of topics, both historical and contemporary, but from a thematic standpoint, the songs form a commentary on the state of humanity, with an emphasis on the various ways human beings keep pulling the same old crap while expecting a different outcome.

*****

All tracks written, arranged, and produced by Chumbawamba except where noted.

“When an Old Man Dies”: The opener consists of two lines of lyrics and a sampled rant from ex-member Danbert Nobacon that appeared on the album Anarchy. A two-line song is indeed a rarity, but the rant is there to defend its meager but meaningful content:

Along with the shoes and the shirts and the ties
There’s a library that’s lost when an old man dies

“You can’t, you should never try and freeze music, and to try and maintain the song in that form, saying ‘this is exactly how it was’, this is a silly way of looking at things.”

When you think about it, the metaphor of human-as-library is quite powerful. My parents serve as my go-to library, as I have consulted them on just about everything—music, history, politics, relationships—you name it, they’ve been there for me. When anyone dies, we lose access to much of their library because so much of it is expressed in conversation and action, and I dread the day when I’m no longer able to drop by and engage them in a chat. In two little lines, “When an Old Man Dies” packs more meaning than most pop songs, which is why you should never try to freeze music.

“Add Me” (Featuring the Charlie Cake Marching Band from Leeds): Not all the reviews of the album were positive, but that had more to do with the critic’s non-functional brain than the music. From Pop Matters: “Take the first single ‘Add Me’, a smug, nudging attack on online social networking sites. It’s a broad, demeaning character sketch of a basement-dwelling immature perv, the premise being that MySpace, Facebook, et al benefit only the basest, most predatory elements of human society. As such, the song is woefully out of touch, the uninformed critique of a grumpy old man whose only knowledge of such sites stems from sordid exposés in the Daily Mail.”

I think the writer is the one who is woefully out of touch and couldn’t see beyond his techno-bias. Chumbawamba was able to successfully predict what social media would turn into: a cesspool of lies and misinformation and a hunting ground for sick bastards. This is why several countries have introduced bans on social media for underage youth and are trying to hold dickheads like Zuckerberg and Musk accountable for the damage they have done to people of all ages. I removed myself from my only remaining social media website when Musk took over Twitter, and though it may have weakened my marketing efforts, I’m a happier and healthier person for doing so.

In this case, the twisted mother fucker is a time bomb ready to explode with a fetish for celebrities. Shit, even his mother can’t stand him, and she was an unfit mother to begin with.

I’m a loner alone with neuroses and hate
Anger is a permanent character trait
My letter bombs are primed and ready to send
Would you like to Add Me as a friend?

I’m a wound-up whiner with a fetish for guns
I’m almost 50 and I live with my Mum
I hope my nude picture doesn’t offend
Would you like to Add Me as a friend?

Add Me, Add Me
My mother says she wished she’d never had me
Add Me, Add Me
Would you like to Add Me as a friend? (2) . . .

Here’s a picture of me in my Nazi uniform
Doing a trick with an egg that I like to perform
At a monster truck rally that my Mum and me attend
Would you like to Add Me as a friend?

I’ve added Britney and Paris and you and Tom
I’m going to find your address so I can visit you at home
I don’t like people but I like to pretend
Would you like to Add Me as a friend?

The music to the tune is somewhat reminiscent of a Django Reinhardt arrangement with Boff on ukulele. The instrumental passage is a hoot, featuring English saxophonist Jo Freya and the Charlie Cake Marching Band from Leeds, creating a nice 1930’s smoky bar mood. Lou Watts’ vocal is restrained and matter-of-fact, strengthening the song’s essential black humour (and yes, I did laugh at the mention of the monster truck rally—so MAGA).

“Words Can Save Us”: Well, this is certainly timely—a lament regarding the world’s reluctance to use words to solve problems, and choosing violence and war instead. The arrangement fixes your attention through the use of a capella three-part harmonies with no instrumentation. The opening verse captures what every decent American must be feeling today: a knot in the stomach as they get ready to read the latest news.

April morning summer come soon
Clouds follow after
Morning sun is hidden by noon
Day shrouded over
Tears to face the morning news
We watch our future burn
And wonder if we’ll ever learn
That words can save us

There is little doubt that the warmongers depicted here are the Americans during the Bush 2 years, when the neocons ignited a useless war in Afghanistan that accomplished nothing.

War in Broken Promise Land
Fame fear and gunfire
Cowboy culture blood on its hands
Flag fuel and empire
Bit parts for shooting stars
Above the dying trees
No-one looking up to see
How words can save us

Number one Favourite son
One more outsider
Army drops its cluster bombs
Boy sees his future
World are you listening now?
This fool just had its’ day
Who’ll be brave enough to say
That words can save us?

Last week I read that “As of April 2026, President Trump has proposed a record-breaking $1.5 trillion FY2027 defense budget, marking a roughly 42% increase. The proposal includes $1.1 trillion for the Pentagon and $350 billion for munitions and industrial base expansion, while proposing a 10% cut to nondefense spending. It focuses on accelerating the ‘Golden Dome’ missile shield, bolstering naval forces, and funding operations related to ongoing conflicts.” His budget director defended the proposal by saying, “President Trump promised to reinvest in America’s national security infrastructure, to make sure our nation is safe in a dangerous world.”

How utterly blind of him. The country most responsible for making the world dangerous and unsafe is the United States, and the administration is already planning to launch more ongoing conflicts. I’m sure that the lunatic heading the Department of War who claims to be fighting on behalf of Jesus would dismiss “Words Can Save Us” as “woke,” and as Voldemort only uses words to bully other countries and threaten enemies, it is likely we will be entering the most tragic era in human history unless Americans pull together to end this nightmare and get rid of that fool.

“Hull or Hell” (With vocals by Oysterband): The subject of this song is poet and novelist Phillip Larkin, who lived in Kingston upon Hull for the last thirty years of his life. His legacy was somewhat tarnished by the release of his letters after his death, revealing a passion for porn and racist sentiments. Despite the hot gossip,  he was chosen as “the nation’s best-loved poet” in a survey by the Poetry Book Society a decade later. The revelations probably earned him entry into the tortured poet’s club, which no doubt improved his reputation. We expect artists—and especially poets—to be at least a little weird, because without the ability to view the world through a different lens, a wannabe poet might as well apply for a job with Hallmark.

Chumbawamba grants Larkin his status as a tortured poet with the repeated line “In Hull or Hell he lies,” sung heartily by the boys from the Oysterband. They also bemoan his fall from grace: “The dirt and the filth that we don’t get to see/That’s eating his language away/This yellow-eyed nastiness hides from the light of the day.” They end the song on a down note, which I think is a bit unfair: “His housemaid she tried but the dirt grew so fast/The darkest of colours he nailed to the mast/Stuck in his ways like he’s stuck in the past.” If we were to ban artists of any stripe because they said and did certain things we find unacceptable, we would have no art at all. Artists are wired to break barriers, and sometimes that urge leads them to do stupid and disgusting things. Lord Byron was far worse than Phillip Larkin on that score.

Despite that misstep, the lyrics also celebrate poetry itself, and the music is both lovely and compelling.

“El Fusilado” (With vocals by Ray Hearne and Coope Boyes and Simpson): From Songfacts: “This song tells the true story of Wenceslao Moguel, a soldier in the Mexican Revolution, who was captured and sentenced to death by a firing squad without a trial. Moguel was shot 9 times, including a final bullet through his head at close range by an officer to ensure death. But somehow, he survived and managed to escape. After his ‘execution,’ he went on to live a full life and spent much of it touring the USA with the Ripley’s Believe It Or Not traveling museum.”

Okay . . . and the point of this story is? Sounds like Moguel pulled a fast one on some gullible employee working for Ripley’s.

“Unpindownable”: Set to a simple arrangement of strings, this is one of the prettiest songs on the album and also one of the most inspiring. Using Darwinian metaphors, the song reminds us that regardless of our stage in life, we are all capable of evolving to be who we want to be if we choose to do so:

In the age before the information age
Making history and living for the days
We told our stories then in oh so many ways
We were unpindownable
We were unpindownable

The moth it changed between the chimney and the tree
I grew feet so I could crawl out from the sea
No one dares to tell me what I’m going to be
For I am unpindownable
I am unpindownable

(spoken) “Change and mutate and absorb it, it’s a creative process”

We seem to have forgotten we have that ability in the information age, as we let our technology guide and shape our personalities. One of the greatest problems our world faces today is the denial of personal evolution—denying that it exists and denying others the right to evolve. MAGA draws its strength from the leaders and followers who don’t want the world to change and want to take us back to the past—a losing proposition indeed, but the weak are always susceptible to fear.

“I Wish That They’d Sack Me” (Traditional; arrangement and lyrics by Chumbawamba): Every time I hear a politician promise jobs, jobs, and more jobs, I want to puke. They promise to create “good-paying jobs,” but they never talk about the fact that many jobs are shit jobs that pay the bills while diminishing the spirit. This is the longest song on the album, and the first of two songs that deal with the cynicism that results from a meaningless job:

Six in the morning, don’t want to wake
Sun laying low and the world sleeping late
Hate like the river, runs heavy and deep
Oh I wish that they’d sack me and leave me to sleep

Five days from seven the week’s hardly mine
The alarm clock’s gone over to enemy lines
Waste my time working for cowards and creeps
Oh I wish that they’d sack me and leave me to sleep

Therein lies the problem: too many cowards and creeps in supervisory positions. Ooh . . . I hear a faint voice . . . coming from heaven no doubt . . . well, hello Joe Strummer! “So you got someone to boss around/It makes you feel big now.” Thanks, bud!

“Word Bomber” (With vocals by Roy Bailey): From Songfacts: “This song is about the suicide attacks in London of the 7th July 2005, where three bombs went off almost simultaneously, killing 56, including the bombers themselves, and injuring more than 700. Three of the four attackers came from Chumbawamba’s hometown, Leeds.” A horrible day indeed, but instead of writing about the carnage, Chumbawamba expresses the wish that the killers would have used words instead of bombs to send their message. While the approach reiterates the importance of “Words Can Save Us,” there are only faint hints that would lead one to believe that the song was about the July 7th tragedy.

“All Fur Coat & No Knickers“: Great title, but this protest of the commercialization of football (soccer) veers off into too many directions that have nothing to do with football, including Jayne Mansfield visiting a prison in 1967 and a dig at U2, who are “too busy saving the world” to make an appearance at the match.

“Fine Line”: The song “Fine Line” consists of three fine lines:

Those who stand accused
And those who point the finger
Are closer than you want to believe

If only they’d made the connection between Voldemort and the Central Park Five . . .

“Lord Bateman’s Motorbike”: Chumbawamba checks in on the status of two folk figures from the perspective of the  21st Century: Lord Bateman (also referred to as Young Beichan) and our old friend John Barleycorn.

Bateman represents the Nobility, a fictional character celebrated in song for adhering to the old saw, “a promise made is a promise kept.” On a visit to Turkey, Bateman is thrown into the hoosegow for life, but the Turk’s daughter steals the keys to his cell and frees him. In return for that act of kindness, Batement promises to marry the girl when their paths cross again. When she shows up at his doorstep after he married another woman, Bateman sends his wife #1 home with her mum and keeps his promise to marry his savior. I guess bigamy laws were waived for the upper classes.

For those of you who are not Traffic fans, John Barleycorn is a British folk figure personifying barley, beer, and whisky, whose story serves as a metaphor for the agricultural cycle of planting, harvesting, and processing. He symbolizes the death and resurrection of the yearly cycle that keeps us all fat and happy.

The Chumbawamba song could be subtitled, “Oh, how the mighty myths have fallen.” Bateman runs an inn, a “Sort of place where everybody drinks before they drive,” a situation that encourages him to sample the wares even if he is “not too many brandies from a second heart attack.” Barleycorn works for Bateman as barkeep and farmhand, drinks like a fish, and tells everyone who doesn’t want to hear the story again that “once he had a trial for Hull KR”(football team) but is now content to watch their matches from behind the bar. Unfortunately, Bateman likes to ride his motorcycle after he’s had a few in the morning and winds up dead. As for Barleycorn:

In the months to come John Barleycorn he sits and drinks his fill
Measures out his life between his pocket and the till
So down the generations Bateman’s son behind the bar
While Barleycorn he sips his beer and watches Hull KR.

So the elites exist to serve their whims while the commoners exist to serve the elites . . . so much for mythology. The strings add a mournful touch to the song, but there is no yearning for the good old days, which weren’t very good for the commoners anyway.

“A Fine Career” (With vocals by Robb Johnson): In a mere forty-six seconds, Chumbawumba gives us a jolly tongue-in-cheek number that reminds listeners that political promises aren’t worth shit and most candidates for office will say or do anything to get elected. Duh!

The councilor comes with his battered old suit
And his head all filled with plans
Says “It’s not for myself, for the fame or wealth
But to help my fellow man.”
Fist in the air and the first to stand
When the Internationale plays
Says “We’ll break down the walls of the old Town Hall
And we’ll fight all the lifelong day!”
Ten years later where is he now?
He’s ditched all the old ideas
Milked all the life from the old cash cow
Now he’s got a fine career
Now he’s got a fine career

“To a Little Radio” (Music by Hanns Eisler, lyrics by Bertolt Brecht, translated by Chumbawamba): “(Words Flew) Right Around the World” (Featuring the Charlie Cake Marching Band). These two songs flow together: the first was written by Brecht, the other was designed for Chumbawamba’s performance at the annual Brecht Festival in Augsburg. The latter employs the hook “Bert told Brecht. Brecht told Bert,” which was nicked from a poem by Leeds poet Arthur Dewhirst.

Brecht’s contribution is more relevant to our current situation, when thousands of Americans are abandoning their homeland due to the takeover by right-wing nutcakes. Brecht left Germany when Hitler came into power out of fear that his socialist orientation would lead to persecution, bouncing from country to country trying to stay ahead of what Hitler might do next. Still attached to his homeland, he kept in touch with the goings on in Germany via a little radio, just like many American expats (like me) feel the need to keep up with the news from the States, despite the serious risks to our mental health:

Oh little box I carried in my flight
So as not to break the radio tubes inside me
From house to boat from boat to train held tight
So that my enemies could still address me

Right where I slept and much to my dismay
Last thing each night and first thing everyday
About their victories
Defeats for me
Oh please do not fall silent suddenly
Suddenly

Chumbawamba’s piece is a more upbeat contribution that congratulates Brecht for continuing to write works with socialist themes during his extended travels (hence, “his words flew right around the world”). He eventually wound up in Hollywood, working as a scriptwriter until he was blacklisted during the second Red Scare in the land of the free and paranoid right-wingers.

“Sing About Love”: This a capella duet from Boff and Lou may surprise some people who believe that Chumbawamba was wired to do nothing but complain and warn of impending doom. Well, it turns out that if things had been different,  they would have loved to sing about happier things. Each verse ends with the line, “I don’t want to sing about the things I always sing about/I wish I could sing about love.” Here are the things they wish they didn’t have to sing about:

I don’t want to sing about anger and hate
I don’t want to sing about fear and defeat

I don’t want to sing about war and greed
I don’t want to sing about those we can’t feed

I don’t want to sing about suffering and pain
I don’t want to sing for another campaign

I don’t want to sing about rights and wrongs
I don’t want to sing all the same old songs

Here’s the catch:

But I’ll sing them, and sing them ’till there’s no need to sing them
And then I can sing about love

I don’t mean to upset people when I write about how fucked-up our world is today, but music is always attached to a cultural context that I cannot ignore. Because history keeps repeating itself, much of the music from the past is exceptionally relevant today—“unfortunately timeless.” Ergo, I will write about those connections when they arise, until there is no need to write about them.

“Bury Me Deep”: I would classify this song as a retrospective obituary of Margaret Thatcher, and unsurprisingly, Chumbawamba described her as an unfeeling cunt . . . a valid description if you were a child, a coal miner, or anyone working in the manufacturing sector:

When I first came to Commons Lords
Life was simple for me
Took the milk from the children’s mouths
You get nothing for free

Now if I should sleep…
Bury me deep

Waging war on those mutineers
Cut the heart took the soul
Broke the back of the working man
Cut the diamond with coal

Now if I should sleep . . .
Bury me deep

The message in the song is clear: any economic plan that fails to address the needs of all citizens is a failure that leads to destabilizing resentment.

“You Watched Me Dance”: Though it may not be apparent at first, this song is about the failure of partisan politics to provide a clear and cohesive vision for the future. Voldemort tries to erase Obama. Biden tries to erase Voldemort. Voldemort tries to erase Biden. Tories try to cancel out Labour, Labour comes to power and does the same. The French create a perfect mess. Here’s how all this polarization impacts the average Joe and Jane:

You watched me dance from right to left
You watched me dance from left to right
And every time I learned the steps
You changed them overnight
Every twist every turn
Every waltz I danced alone
Now the steps are old and worn

In the States, both sides have reached the point of demonizing the opposition, like little kids who don’t know how to play nice. What Americans need to do to form a more perfect Union, establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity is to fire every party hack and replace the lot with non-partisan adults. Because Americans are wired to be competitive, that will never happen, but it’s nice to dream now and then.

Domestic tranquility? In America? You’ve got to be kidding.

“Compliments of Your Waitress”: My career as a waitress lasted two weeks. The manager kept trying to fondle me, the cooks were assholes, and the customers were unbearable. This will explain why I feel nothing but empathy for the waitress in this song.

The first verse features Lou singing a capella with restaurant chatter in the background; Neil Ferguson enters on the second verse with a gorgeous shower of arpeggios on acoustic guitar. The waitress sounds weary and wary regarding her situation:

The day drags on and stumbles
I’m far too tired to smile
From the kitchen to the tables
I must’ve walked a thousand miles
The man at table number seven
He’s not where he wanted to be
He’s far too tired, or he’s just been fired,
So he takes it all out on me
Takes it all out on me

Pretty young couple in the corner
With much too much to say
They don’t like a thing that I bring them,
And they send it all away
They look in my eyes when I apologise
Say they want it all for free
They’ve got the guilt of easy money,
And they take it all out on me
Take it all out on me

The dignity of labour
It never rang true to me
Where’s the pride in the nine-to-five
And the crook of the bended knee?
And a man wants my telephone number
So drunk he can hardly see
And I know in the haze of rejection
That he’ll take it all out on me
Take it all out on me

I had the advantage of a booming economy in the late 90s, and knowing I could get a job just about anywhere in San Francisco, I quit without notice. I will assume that the waitress in this story needs this job, so her only option for evening the score is revenge:

So take advice from a girl who knows
The next time you complain
There’s a hallway from the kitchen
Where I know I can’t be seen
That’s where I flavour the food I bring you:
Your steaks and your soups and your stew
Compliments of your waitress
I can take it all out on you
Take it all out on you.

I only hope that flavoring is only a mild laxative and nothing poisonous. Rule #1 when dining: never take it out on the help. Take your gripes to management and don’t blame the waitress for doing her job.

“R.I.P. RP”: From Songfacts: “Received Pronunciation (RP) is the accent traditionally regarded as the standard and most prestigious form of spoken British English. The song is a manifesto against linguistic prescriptivism, the idea that there’s only one ‘correct’ form of a language.” It’s more like a eulogy for RP; hence the R.I.P.

“Charlie” (Traditional; arrangement and lyrics by Chumbawamba): Once again, I will suggest a subtitle: “An Ode to Darwin and Common Sense.”

The subject of evolution has divided humans into three camps: those who believe Darwin got it right, those who accept evolution only when homo sapiens is honored as the crown of the evolutionary process, and religious people who reject his theory as blasphemy. The last two groups resent the suggestion that humans evolved from apes, but a recent development provides conclusive evidence that those hairy creatures are our ancestors. “The world’s largest-known group of chimpanzees recently burst into a lethal conflict. Much like in a civil war, the group fractured into two. Then one faction began killing their former group mates on the other side, researchers write today in the journal Science.”

I would place humans somewhere near the middle of the chain, for while many animals harm the environment in one way or another, we have enough brain power to figure out ways to live without destroying the planet, but we do it anyway.

The music was sampled from “Chase PC’s Flee Attack By Own Dog” from the album Slap! Had they added a banjo and a fiddle, the song could have been tagged as a hootenanny, but even though the music is light, the lyrics are packed with punch. The first verse honors Darwin for having the courage to publish his findings to a world filled with close-minded people with their heads up their asses:

All of nature in its place
By hand of the designer
Comes our Charlie spins the world
From here to Asia Minor
In between the Platypus
And perfect Aphrodite
Charlie comes with opposing thumb
To question the Almighty

Last week, we learned that Neil Peart of Rush was disturbed by the GOP’s turn towards mixing religion with politics in the early 80s, and Chumbawamba echoes those sentiments while indicating a healthier way forward: TRUTH!

See the dancing President
The congressman and teacher
Jumpin’ to the music of
The wealthy Midwest preacher

Charlie comes with a brand new dance
Get on the floor and follow
Find yourself a partner and
We’ll swing into tomorrow

Voldemort’s fake embrace of Christianity and his anti-education stance are based on his fundamental strategy: keep the people stupid and scared, and they’ll buy the bullshit every time. Devo was so right about the human race.

“The Ogre”: Wow! Google AI was smart enough to recognize that Chumbawamba saw Voldemort coming! “‘The Ogre’ by Chumbawamba, from their 2008 album The Boy Bands Have Won, is a folk-pop song exploring the nature of power, destruction, and the inability of brute force (the “ogre”) to command intellect or language. It focuses on how raw power can dominate physically but remains intellectually limited.”

The Ogre does what Ogres can
One prize beyond his reach –
Conquers those who write the world
But cannot master speech
Among the hurt and slain
On subjugated plain
The Ogre’s words so morbid and mundane

Male insecurity will kill us all.

“Refugee”: I guess the Judeo-Christian belief in the Golden Rule no longer applies to refugees in Europe, the United States, and many other countries. Refugees are frequently viewed with resentment, as freeloaders who contribute little to society, and targets of politicians playing the hate card. The story in this song is set to a sweet, melancholic arrangement and told from the perspective of a refugee who arrived in the U.K. to a cold welcome and feels like a slave to be auctioned off.

It’s good of you to ask me sir
How I spend my days
Water glass and ladders sir
Working for my pay
Back home I saw a future sir
Learnt my father’s trade
But here that counts for nothing sir
Paradise betrayed

Looking through the windows
All your world to see
To you I’m just another refugee

Now this country is my home
This land of auctioneers
Cast your eye upon me sir
What price the dreams that brought me here?

I don’t understand how people can demonize those who, through no fault of their own, are forced to leave their homeland and need people to help them, not hurt them, but that’s what’s happening in most of the rich countries. The EU Parliament recently caved in to right-wing pressure and passed a law on immigration that is sickeningly inhumane. From Amnesty International:

Reacting to the agreements between the European Parliament and Council on new EU asylum rules, which undermine the very foundation of refugee protection, Olivia Sundberg Diez, the EU Advocate on Migration and Asylum at Amnesty International said:

“This is an unprecedented attack on asylum in the EU, which must be understood in the context of a vast array of punitive deportation measures, still under negotiation. This shameless attempt to sidestep international legal obligations further shifts EU responsibility for refugee protection to countries outside Europe and is far from a humane migration policy that upholds people’s dignity.

“Changes to the ‘safe third country’ concept will mean that people seeking asylum in the EU may see their applications rejected without review, they could be sent to countries to which they have no connection and may have never set foot in before. Today’s agreement marks an abdication from the EU’s commitment to refugee protection and paves the way for EU member states brokering agreements with third countries for the offshore processing of asylum claims.”

Needless to say, I will not be extending my contract with the EU when it expires this year. I’ll have to find another way to continue the fight for human rights.

“Same Old Same Old”: This little ditty expresses the frustration many of us feel regarding the state of the world today. Who cares?

Lately it seems no-one cares anymore
That peace is a place where we rest between wars
I know oh I know we’ve been here before
It’s the same old
It’s the same old
It’s the same old same old

“Waiting for the Bus”: The story of Gary Tyler’s wrongful conviction for murder had been covered by Gil Scott-Heron and UB40 decades before, but despite the publicity, endless appeals, and support from Amnesty International, Tyler was till rotting in prison when Chumbawamba wrote this song. He was convicted and sentenced to death at the age of seventeen, and though the death sentence was commuted, he spent the next forty-one years in prison. He was released in 2016 after he agreed to plead guilty to manslaughter, his only way out.

The bus was barely moving we were set upon and stopped.
Watched 200 white boys throwing bottles cans and rocks.
Trapped and scared together there was nowhere we could run.
I’m just waiting for the bus to take me home.

Boy outside the bus an automatic in his hand.
Heard a single shot and then we all just hit the ground.
I never pulled a trigger and I never held a gun.
I’m just waiting for the bus to take me home.

A white boy lay there bleeding, the cops they searched the bus.
Never found a thing to say that it was one of us.
Took us down the station, they were beating us for fun.
I’m just waiting for the bus to take me home.

Gun produced from nowhere, they pinned the crime on me.
Lynch-mob for a jury meant they’d never set me free.
Thirty years in prison for a crime I haven’t done,
I’m just waiting for the bus to take me home.

It was his great misfortune that the efforts to release him coincided with the emergence of the racist politician David Duke and during the term of a gutless governor. “In 1989, the Louisiana Board of Appeals recommended a pardon, based on Tyler’s good behavior in prison. Five witnesses recanted the testimony they had presented at his trial. At the time, Governor Buddy Roemer, a Democrat, was running against David Duke for election. He refused to consider the pardon as the election was racially charged. He feared a backlash from white voters if he freed Tyler.” (Wikipedia)

If that isn’t enough for you to demand that politicians be barred from roles in the justice system, Voldemort’s pardons of career criminals should convince you.

“What We Want”: Not much of a finale here . . . the one verse is repeated verbatim three times:

We know what we want
We know what we’ve got
But what do we need?
What do we need?

The album ends with a cryptic message: “What’s happened to the music is that it’s changing, it’s changing to suit people’s needs now.” If that’s the case, people obviously don’t need much, given the piss-poor quality of the majority of 21st-century music.

*****

It was nice to engage with people who share my passion for protecting basic human rights, but I have to admit that in these times, the work can be quite exhausting. Still, the only reason I agreed to complete the term specified in my contract is that if I leave before it ends, I’m ineligible to collect unemployment checks, and I’d hate to have Alicia carry the financial burden by herself. The good news is that re-engaging with Chumbawamba reminded me how important it is to continue the fight, and I will be an absolute pain in the ass during the rest of my tenure, trying to correct the course the EU has chosen to follow to make the anti-immigration jerks happy.

We’ll continue our exploration of the Tragically Hip next week with Day for Night,  and if things calm down a bit, Midnight Oil will follow.