MEDIUM WELL(Music and Other Media)Chumbawamba in Dick TracyApparently there’s a member of Dick

MEDIUM WELL

(Music and Other Media)

Chumbawamba in Dick Tracy

Apparently there’s a member of Dick Tracy’s rogues gallery who goes by Blackjack, dresses like a ‘30s gangster, and uses Chumbawamba’s novelty hit “Tubthumping” to soundtrack all of his robberies. No, I don’t know what to do with that information either.

According to the Dick Tracy Wiki, Blackjack does this to control the timing of his robberies. Okay, I get that. You know you gotta be behind the teller’s desk by the first chorus, out the door by the bridge, etc. That makes sense. I used to time my morning showers much the same way back in high school.

But why “Tubthumping?” It certainly doesn’t fit with Blackjack’s Depression-era bank robber aesthetic. Nor was it in the cultural zeitgeist during his creation: Blackjack first appeared in 2012, more than a decade after the song’s release. The closest guess I have is that since Blackjack occasionally adopts the practice of purposefully robbing banks with unethical business practices, he was a Chumbawamba tru-fan who really vibed with their anti-capitalist message and chose the song to add a intertextual layer to his low rent Robin Hood-ing.

Or maybe it’s just random nonsense.

-TWG