Chumbawamba is one of my favorite bands - always political, always relevant and always quick and precise in expressing their opinions in hot-button issues. With a career spanning 25 years, it is a real shame most people know only one of their songs, Tubthumping (’I get knocked down / But I get up again / You’re never going to keep me down’). The release of this song was, in my humble opinion, the worst public relations move they could ever do because most people now think of them as a cool-fun-one-hit-wonder-band and most do not bother to listen to any of their other songs.
I’m a loner alone with neurosis and hate
Anger is a permanent character trait
My letter bombs are primed and they’re 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 fifty and I live with my mum
I hope my nude picture doesn’t offend
Would you like to add me as a friend?
Chorus:
Add me, add me,
My momma says she wish she never had me
Add me, add me,
Would you like to add me as a friend?
Would you like to add me as a friend?
I’m a recovering alcoholic; I rarely leave my room,
Peeping through the curtains in my dog costume,
The voices in my head, aah… they’ll get me in the end
Would you like to add me as a friend?
I really like to mail you the picture that I drew,
It’s Kylie’s body, but the head is you
I’ve asked you fifty times before I’m asking you again
Would you like to add me as a friend?
Chorus
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 gonna 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?
On this 6th anniversary of the tragedy of September 11th, I just wanted to make a quick note to Israeli news editors:
This might be the most documented event in history, yet every time there is some news item related to the event - like the recorded emergency phone calls being released to the public or any one of those post-9/11 stories – it seems that news editors always use the footage of a plane crashing into the World Trade Center.
With millions of photos and hundreds of videos depicting the first hours of this human tragedy, why is it so important to use that specific point in time, probably the most painful one to watch? Is it intellectual atrophy that forces Israeli news-editors to use the actual impact as a metaphor for the extent of the event? Are these the same people that started calling everything a ‘tsunami’ after the 2004 event – basically comparing every annoying new trend to the catastrophe that caused over 200,000 human casualties?
I leave you with these unanswered questions and one relevant song, Jacob’s Ladder (Not In My Name) by Chumbawamba, one of my favorite bands, from which I took the quote for this post’s subject.
On this 6th anniversary of the tragedy of September 11th, I just wanted to make a quick note to Israeli news editors:
