I’ve long admired, if not loved, the music of Chumbawamba.
Go ahead and laugh, if you must. I’ll wait.
Most folks, especially in the United States, only know the band from one punk hit called Tubthumping in the 90s, but the artists and their discography remain far more complex and varied than many know.
Chumbawamba are anarchists at heart but not the blindly screaming “I hate the system” kind; they are very thought-provoking with cleverly written lyrics woven into non-standard structures that capture you with their oddity before they hook you with melodic ups and downs then reel you in with a sublime combination that you just can’t shake.
They dwell in the realm of masters like Billy Joel and Tom Petty, but Chumbawamba never got the same praise due to a combination of British obscurity and music industry conglomerates not taking a liking to their anarchy. I remember when they got into some kind of copyright pissing match over one album, so the band told its fans to just steal the album. Hey, record execs, take that middle finger and shove it up your collective arse. The money grubbing pricks of the world just don’t get it: It’s about the music, the art, the message, not the money. We all could learn well that lesson.
Music itself was the theme of the band’s album ABCDEFG, as in the musical notes A through G. There are many great songs and stories on that album. It has long fascinated me to the point that I wished its message could be shared to wider audiences, that more people could better appreciate what music has done and can do. That’s when my brain got me into trouble.
My brain is an overthinking machine with a heavy slant toward obsessive. It wouldn’t let this idea go. The songs spoke to me because I love musical stories that are actually stories not rehashed ideas of love, sex, drinking, dancing and partying. I like songs about ideas, lives, advice, warnings, criticisms; songs that make you truly think, learn and see the world anew. Using love and sex as a muse seems like a petty cop-out for “connection” and call it art.
Back to my brain not letting it go. I felt driven to create a kind of play around how my mind envisioned the actions portrayed in the songs. I’ve never written a play before, so I had to do some research on ways to better format it so that it reads more like an actual play script, but I don’t know what I’m doing. Even though, after a couple of weeks I had a working draft that I tweaked here and there for several more weeks.
I’m no master playwright by any stretch of the imagination, so what I ended up with was a vaudeville of scenes and skits stitched together with some kind of fourth-wall history-lesson dialog with attempted humor.
In the end, it may be childish, but it makes me laugh and gives me warm thoughts at the idea of it ever being produced. And my brain has now quieted about this idea; it feels done.
Those interested can follow the link below to get a PDF copy of the script. And if all anyone has to say is “It sucks”, well, such insight is rather redundant with what I just wrote above, so thanks for reading.
Meanwhile, maybe some Chumbawamba fans might find it, like it, improve upon it and put the play together. That would be nice to see. For now, I only have hope, which isn’t so bad.