The roots for my love for punk were laid at a young age. As a 9-year-old child in the third grade, bands of the pop-punk variety like Blink! 182 and The Offspring played constantly on the radio. Heading into 5th and 6th grade, Good Charlotte (their The Young and the Hopeless record remains a classic), Green Day and Simple Plan were favorites. My family influenced much of my music taste as well, with my mother being a fan of The Clash, Blondie (I saw them live with her actually—a treasured memory for real), and The Ramones. One group, however, that had a monumental influence on me was Chumbawamba.
I started listening to them at 6 years old when I started first grade. Being neurodivergent and on the autism spectrum and diagnosed with a host of other mental health issues, school administration placed me on an IEP, otherwise known as an individualized education program/plan. If you attend public school and identify as a “special needs” child, then staff develops an IEP for you, which assesses your strengths and “weaknesses”(a loaded and problematic term if you ask me) in different learning areas and creates learning goals and achievements based on the data presented. Accommodations and modifications can be part of an IEP as well; for example, they took me out of my regular classroom for a portion of the day to work with a special education specialist to receive more hands-on instruction.
A big hurdle of mine was acclimating socially with my peers. Feeling like an alien from outer space on another plane of existence entirely, finding a sense of relation to my classmates remained a struggle. My mother put me in an after-school program to help with this issue so I could have more experience interacting with others (plus, I needed a place to stay until she could pick me up from school as she worked 12+ hour shifts as a nurse). The specialists in charge would lead us in guided playtime sessions and had shelves of board games and toys, which the other children and I definitely took advantage of. This being 1997, the Pokemon games and their accompanying anime’s popularity were at an all-time fever pitch, and many of us brought our card collection with us.
I distinctly remember one fall afternoon, sitting on the cold, hard tile of the play area with another kid with an array of Pokemon cards spread out in front of us. The radio would often be blaring in the background, and as we were excitedly geeking out over my holographic first-edition Charizard, I heard the song “Tubthumping” for the first time.
I get knocked down
But I get up again
You're never gonna keep me down
“This sounds so cool,” I told my friend, singing along loudly as the track continued to play.
Pissin' the night away
Pissin' the night away
Suddenly, one of the program employees came over to us, furious: “Hey! don’t say that word!” Apparently, being a young child and saying “pissing,” is some sort of major transgression (my mother also was none too pleased with me listening to “Tubthumping” on a constant loop), but I didn’t care: the song spoke to me and awakened something primal. Even at that age, I had the cognizance that there lied something “different” with how I interpreted and thought of the world. Hearing it reminded me that despite the struggles I’ve faced, I can lean on my inner strength and resolve to get me through them and make a difference.
But that isn’t the end of my love affair with Chumbawamba.
Flash forward to December 2023. Coping with the aftermath of a mass shooting at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, where I teach and am a former student, weighed on me tremendously. Despite the pain, I leaned on my interest in writing as an outlet to help me process the tragedy. When I work, I HAVE to listen to music; without it, I feel naked, like there’s something missing. The practice of getting all the discombobulated thoughts in my head down on paper ended up being extremely therapeutic and also uncovered a lot of repressed memories and unresolved trauma from my childhood. Reckoning with this made me realize the important role that music played in getting me through some of the darkest periods in my life. I ended up revisiting a lot of my favorite bands from my adolescence as a source of comfort, including Chumbwamba.
While I always enjoyed their work, this time around, I REALLY LISTENED to it. Digging into their back catalog, I rediscovered so many of my favorite albums, including Anarchy. Released in 1994, it’s the one that I probably have on rotation the most. From the playful irony of “Give the Anarchist a Cigarette” to the hypnotic, dance-influenced track “Heaven-Hell”, the whole record FUCKING rocks. The standout for me is “Timebomb,” which provides a biting critique of the oppressive and alienating nature of the ever-insidious capitalist-driven economy:
Hear the ticking of your heartbeat beating
Hear the breaking of their promises
Heart the smashing of your expectations
Hear the shattering of half-rhymes
I am a timebomb
Stop now
What's that sound
Everybody looks what's going down
While Chumbawamba got their start in England, I can’t help but relate to these lyrics. The broken and empty promises constantly fed to us by our country’s leadership are disheartening and have caused a larger mood of nihilism. It’s so easy and tempting for me to fall into that mindset when I see everything happening around me, and I honestly don’t fault anyone for feeling this way; the world is fucked-up (I mean, in the first week of the new year alone, we had a terrorist attack in New Orleans, a cybertruck explosion in my home city of Las Vegas, and rampaging wildfires in California). “Timebomb”, along with many other Chubmawamba songs, however, taught me the importance of staying resilient and using the role I DO play in society to speak truth to power and stand up for the change I want to see; perhaps the greatest lesson I took away from listening to their music.
I’m a huge fan of independent businesses, with PM Press being one of my favorites. They just announced that they will be publishing the new Boff Whaley (one of the founding members of Chumbawamba) story collection But: Life Isn't Like That, Is It? (which I am SUPER hyped for). If you want to help support the project, please consider pledging some money to their Kickstarter campaign.
Nice one, Kelly! They're distant friends of mine, and truly special people. The track that always stuck with me was "Repetition" from a million years ago....
Thanks for sharing