Chumbawamba Co-founder Calls Out Bendigo Councillor Using 'Tubthumping' In Campaign

A founding member of irreverent UK anarcho-pop-punk outfit Chumbawamba has taken Bendigo councillor Elise Chapman to task for claiming the band's iconic tune Tubthumping as one of her "campaign anthems".

According to The Bendigo Advertiser, Chapman — a councillor for the Bendigo ward of Lockwood — had linked to a YouTube clip of the song in a post that has since been deleted, telling the paper that it was the track's chorus lyrics of, "I get knocked down/ But I get up again" that were the major point of relation for the politician.

Chumbwamba co-founder Dunstan Bruce, who now performs as part of Brighton punk group Interrobang‽, was consequently made aware of Chapman's use of the song, taking to his own Facebook page to condemn the councillor for using the song "as part of her nefarious election campaign", and ultimately requesting she cease the association.

"I have asked the idiot to stop," he said.

Chapman's use of the song apparently drew some bemused comments from her page followers (not entirely surprising, given Chumbawamba's well-known anarchist roots); additionally, the politician apparently believed the lyric "Pissing the night away" was actually "Missing the night away" — never mind that the immediate subsequent lyrics rattle off several different styles of alcohol and allude to drinking your problems away. 

The Bendigo Advertiser reports that she was evidently unaware of a similar circumstance unfolding between Chumbawamba and recently departed UKIP leader Nigel Farage back in 2011, when the band demanded the British politician stop using Tubthumping for his campaign of the time.

In case you hadn't noticed, conservative politicians and groups being called out for using artists' music without their permission or blessing are a growing group these days; on the local front, Aussie musos involved in similar stoushes in the past few years include the likes of Jimmy Barnes, John Farnham, Mark Seymour, Shane Howard and John Schumann (as well as Lee Kernaghan, who controversially abstained from condemning the use of his music by hard-right groups).