‘Twas the week before Christmas, and all the potential Xmas number ones were lining up for a shot at the crown…
JCB Song, by Nizlopi (their 1st and only #1)
1 week, from 18th – 25th December 2005
2005’s left-field, indie contender for festive top spot – following in the grand footsteps of Housemartins, the Flying Pickets, Gary Jules and co. – was from folk duo Nizlopi, with their song about a bullied kid skipping school to drive with his dad in his big yellow digger. It’s a gentle acoustic tune, nostalgic in tone, written from the POV of a five-year-old. I can see why it was a big Christmas hit.
Shame, then, that I’m now going to rip it to shreds. I hated this song at the time, and two decades haven’t improved matters. To my ears, what some people might argue as being ‘sweet’ comes across as cloying, twee, simpering… insert your synonym of choice. Sample lyrics: The engine rattles my bum like berserk… and My dad’s probably had a bloody hard day… It’s cynical heartstring pulling, is what it is. Holding up the bypass, Me and my dad havin’ a top laugh… the refrain goes. And of course loads of people will gobble up this sort of thing at Christmas like it was leftover turkey. (Though it wasn’t written with the holidays in mind. It had first charted at #160 in June, before growing in renown via the internet.)
I misremembered the ‘JCB Song’ as being for charity, which might have explained its lyrics and its success. Back in 2005, charity wristbands were all the rage. The white ‘Make Poverty History’, yellow ‘Livestrong’ (ummm…), and the blue ‘Beat Bullying’ are the ones I remember. It was how we virtue signalled before social media. So I’d always assumed that this – a song about a bullied child – was raising money to ‘beat the bullies’. But no. We can’t even give it a pass on those grounds.
For the coda, it transforms from gentle folksy ballad into a rousing rapped, hoe-down finale: I’m Luke, I’m five and my dad’s Bruce Lee… This bit sounds familiar. It makes me do a double take. It dawns on me why ‘JCB Song’ is so bad. A quick bit of research puts two and two together… When Nizlopi were starting out, their guitar technician was a certain Edward Christopher Sheeran.
Oh Nizlopi, what did you do? I could just about forgive this twee slop – it is Christmas after all – and appreciate the fact that you are all but one hit wonders (follow-up ‘Girls’ made #91). But to know that Ed Sheeran was sitting backstage at your gigs, taking notes, making his plan for world domination. That’s unforgivable.
Unlike the previous indie hits I listed in the intro, both Nizlopi and the ‘JCB Song’ seem to have been pretty much forgotten. And though they didn’t hold on to make Christmas #1, they did take one sizeable scalp when they consigned the twin powers of Westlife and Diana Ross, and their rejig of ‘When You Tell Me That You Love Me’, to the runners-up spot. This may be the only instance in recorded history when I would have preferred Westlife at #1…
You forgot one thing, what’s a Nizlopi? Sounds like Snoop-speak (“Fo shozlopi, my nizlopi.”)
According to Wiki, a Hungarian girl one of them had a crush on at school. Which is pretty creepy. I like them even less now…
Speaking as a former bullied child at school, there are no sympathy kudos having a day out visiting tractors, that would have been a bloody punishment on top of the misery. Dad sounds like he was just doing what he wanted, like taking you train spotting for his own pleasure. I also hate this record, no redeeming qualities coming from me as consolation, and it’s very Sheeran in vibe, except his lyrics are more mass-appeal on his sloppy tunes. I do like Ed when he steers away into other genres, though, so there is that.
Oh I am glad people are agreeing with me on this one. I thought I might be in the minority. While I obviously don’t condone bullying, an anti-bullying message is not easy to put into a song and make it good… without it ending up preachy or trite. Plus, the back story doesn’t make sense, as the kid in the song is five, and I don’t think you get ‘bullies’ at five. Five year olds are selfish and impulsive and struggle to control their emotions, but I don’t think they’re emotionally developed enough to ‘bully’. And certainly not for dyslexia, as the writers have claimed. In fact, I just checked, and five is too young to be diagnosed for dyslexia. Nothing about this song makes sense! 🙂
most 5-year olds can barely read unless their parents push it early – at least in the olden days! – these days they are all ipad experts but writing not so much. As a shy boy who played with girls cos they werent as rough as the boys (and I liked arts and crafts, not sports) the notion that kids pick on you for being dyslexic (or as it was called in those days, “struggling with classwork”) is dubious – though I’m not belittling anyone who felt that way. Those not doing well were invariably the ones usually picking on everyone else who did their homework and minded their own business. I suppose it felt like getting even, boredom, showing off, or just old-fashioned inability to empathise.
I do like the notion of the gentle track being popular, but it never rubbed me the right way on repeat plays!
This walked so Ed Sheeran could run. Little gits. I actually like some of Ed Sheeran’s hits – not all of them, but I I think you and I are gonna have some contrasting opinions once we get to that ginger-haired folk popper’s colonising the top of the charts – but this sounds like shite.
I’m trying to think of an Ed Sheeran song I like. I can’t bring one to mind right now… I will say that it’s not a blanket hatred. I have varying levels of dislike for his songs, from ‘it’s okay, I suppose’ to ‘Jesus this is criminal’.
No wait, I don’t mind his Xmas song with Elton John. There we are!
I knew he was huge in the UK, but I had no idea he had 14 UK No. 1s until looking at his section on the official UK Chart website. That’s nuts (he has 6 here in Australia and surprisingly only two in the US) but then again I do remember him being huge in the 2010s and even now while he’s no longer one of the top artists in the mainstream his music is still played a lot. And he’s unfournately influential. RIP Stewart when you have to cover 14 different Ed Sheeran songs (and he might get more UK No. 1s, you never know).
Yeah fourteen… Totalling 60 weeks, all in the space of nine years. So basically way over an entire calendar year of Sheeran being at number one… Silver lining is, it’s been three and a half years since his last #1. His commercial power is clearly waning, and his golden boy image certainly slipped with the Macklemore ‘incident’… So here’s hoping! Now we just need Taylor Swift’s star to start waning… And I like her a lot more than Ed!
Those lyrics you showed…are pretty bad! The one thing I do like about it is the “sound” of it. It is very accessible.
It’s a shame, I suppose, as the song sounds quite unique. You don’t get many folk-influenced number ones. But it’s cynical, and the lyrics are very clunky.
I agree with you totally on that.
That Sheeran connection is amazing. I do think this vocalist has a bit more charm than Sheeran though.
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You know when it comes to Christmas Number Ones I’m still baffled that Walking in the Air never topped the charts. What with the numerous covers I thought it would have done it by now.
It would make a nice Christmas number one… Highest it’s been is #5 thanks to Aled Jones, I think.