Buy Nothing Day

is coming soon!

Hi all,

Thank you for joining me for today’s song, Buy Nothing Day, by Chumbawamba’s Allan Whalley and Alice Nutter.

Comments and questions are welcome. Please be respectful of others’ opinions if they should differ from yours.

If you’d like to hear the song before you read the background, I’ve included a couple of YouTube videos below the article. 

If you have the Substack app on your phone, you can LISTEN to the article as you read. 

A brief intro…

Every year, there is a special day near the end of November. It’s called Buy Nothing Day. It began as a way to fight against consumerism. Consumerism is the way people who buy things (consumers) want more and more things to buy. This has a very big impact on the environment, the planet’s resources, and even human rights.

Since it started in Canada in 1992, Buy Nothing Day campaigns have spread to the U.S., Asia, Europe, South America, and Australia.

(via Brave New Films from United States - Wikimedia Commons)

The Song

(541 words)

I woke up this morning, my temperature high

(Buy, buy, buy)

“I’ll never buy nothing again”, I lied

(Buy, buy, buy)

My doctor he told me to stay out of town

(Buy, buy, buy)

He said, “Affluenza will get you down”

(Buy, buy, buy)

“Affluenza” is not a real word. The word affluent” means wealthy or having a lot of money. Here, Chumbawamba is saying that the need to buy things we don’t really need is like a disease, like the flu (influenza).

What did you do in the war, dad?

What did you do in the war?

Ring up the tills in the High Street

I’m not coming in anymore

The child is asking the father about his experiences in the war (probably WWII). Right after this, however, the line Ring up the tills in the High Street is perhaps what the father did during the war: sell a lot of things at a cash register in the High Street (the main shopping street in a town). I’m not coming in anymore means the singer refuses to buy, buy, buy.

till (UK) or cash register (US)

There’s a price tag on me 

Here, they are saying that it is the consumer who is being sold. That means that when we buy something, the company makes a profit. The more we buy, the more profit the more the company profits. 

and there’s sick on the floor (someone has thrown up/vomited on the floor… from consuming too much?)

We’re buying up anything we can’t afford

(Buy, buy, buy)

Wherever I go I keep hearing this voice

(Buy, buy, buy)

Saying, "choose what you want" but there's so little choice

Do we really have a choice in what we buy or can we only choose from the things that are offered in supermarkets or shops?

Give it a rest. In other words, stop buying things for a short while.

There’s dumb moves behind me and bad debts above meaning I’ve wasted money on buying things and now I owe money to the bank.

I pawned my affections and still got no love. To “pawn” something means to give it temporarily to someone or a business in exchange for a loan. Here, the singer gave his affections [love] to someone (or to shopping?) but got nothing in return.

My heart and my pocket will say it's unfair

I'm unlearning the cost of this Laissez-Faire Laissez-Faire is a form of economics in which the government doesn’t get in the way with how the free market works. In other words, the singer doesn’t get anything for “paying” some one with his love, but there’s nothing he can do to get his love back.

There’s another version!

In the notes for this live version posted on YouTube (second video below), the videographer included another set of lyrics in which Chumbawamba ridicule (make a joke about) themselves for selling high-priced tickets for a very short performance:

They sounded like shit and they weren't on too long

(The singers weren’t singing well and gave a short performance)

There was far too much talking and not enough song

A week's wages they take for this show

And the bastards won't play the one song that you know

…

This year, November 24 is Buy Nothing Day

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Question

What will you not buy on Buy Nothing Day?

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For English language learners…

Here is another article about Buy Nothing Day on the British Council’s Learn English site:

https://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/general-english/magazine-zone/black-friday-buy-nothing-day

Live version:

Original YouTube video with show notes can be found at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OiuYmAarme8

Sources

Encyclopædia Britannica, inc. Buy nothing day. Encyclopædia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/topic/Buy-Nothing-Day