Tubthumping

The Wildcats thump the Freebirds, 57-27

BLACK CREEK, AL - Once upon a time, Bear Bryant and Shug Jordan were in the stands at a high school football game sitting together as acquaintances, but there to recruit the same player. The player they were recruiting kept getting knocked down over and over, but kept getting back up. Shug commented to Bear, "I just love the way he keeps getting back up, he'd make a great player at Auburn". To which Coach Bryant responded, "We'll let you have him. We're going to sign the kid that keeps knocking him down". Mr. Webster defines "tubthumping" as the expression of an opinion in a loud and violent, or dramatic manner. In England, a tubthumper is a politician. In New England and throughout the U.S., the equivalent to tubthumping would be a politician's stump speech, or a layman's soapbox. "Tubthumping" (also known colloquially as "I Get Knocked Down") is a song released by the British anarcho-punk rock band Chumbawamba in August of 1997 from their eighth studio album entitled Tubthumper. It was the band's most successful single, peaking at #2 in the U.K. and reaching the top of the charts in Australia, Canada, Ireland, Italy, New Zealand and it reached #6 in the U.S. Some say it's a drinking song, others a political song. Nonetheless, we found the song to be entertaining, meaningful and inspirational which is practically unheard of these days in the music world. According to Chumbawamba's lead guitarist Boff Whalley, the song is about "the resilience of ordinary people”. In Week 12 of the BDFL, Bama showed some reslience down on the Plains in a four overtime vict'ry, while the Freebirds showed very little resilience at Black Creek Ballpark falling 57-27 to the visiting Wildcats in regulation.

Tubthumping by Chumbawamba (1997)