• In England, a tubthumper is a politician. The US equivalent of tubthumping is "going on the stump" (campaigning).
• "To piss" has a different meaning in the UK than in the US - "Pissing the night away" would translate to "Drinking (alcoholic beverages) all night." To be pissed in England is to be drunk, to be pissed in the US is to be angry.
• This was the only US Top 40 hit for Chumbawamba. The group is a collective dedicated to the destruction of the government of the United Kingdom.
• The US publisher of their Tubthumper CD insisted on the group providing an attribution for every quotation in the liner notes. Because label management and the group were not totally successful in tracing the sources of the quotes, they removed them all and replaced them with a web address - chumba.com - so that Americans could read what was taken out of the CD packaging.
• The group got its name from a story created by one of its members. In the story, the men were Chumbas, the women Wumbas.
• The group took some criticism for this because it was one of their least-political songs, yet it was their biggest hit. In 1989, they contributed songs to a compilation called "F-ck EMI," but they signed with EMI to release this. The band explained that they could reach a much wider audience if they went the major-label route. So much for anarchy. 
• On the CD, there are interludes before and after this song and many other songs on the CD. The intro consists of some background music and dialogue. The dialogue is from the Brassed Off, a 1996 English movie not as well known in America. The dialogue is: "Truth is I thought it mattered. I thought that music mattered. But does it? Bollocks! Not compared to how people matter."
• Homer Simpson sings this tune and alters a few of the lyrics in the "Little Girl Of The Big 10" episode of The Simpsons

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CATW