The nineties were probably when I first really became aware of ‘music’ as an entity – before that it was always in the background (my mom is never not listening to music, a trait which I’ve thankfully inherited) but sometime between ages 4 and my early teens I started to become able to distinguish tracks, albums, artists, and genres. A friend of mine had the Chumbawamba audio cassette tape, and we’d listen and dance to it all the time – and while everyone might consider Tubthumber’s eponymous track overplayed, the rest of the album has some really fun stuff on it. The last track, ‘Scapegoat,’ is my favorite.

The album contains a lot of sampling used in ‘intermissions’ between tracks, and this one starts off with a little orchestral ‘presenting…’ sequence, which quickly drops off into an electronic into for the real song – warped synth and classic drum machine claps transition to an easily understandable electro-rock groove. Electric guitar, a dancey percussion / bassline combo, and a trancey snare fill lead into the first verse, courtesy very ‘folky’ (as opposed to ‘electronic’ or ‘rocky’) female vocals:

Aftershave and smoke 
And the same unfunny jokes 
They say they’ll take you 
‘Anywhere 
But there’ 
Believe every half-whispered 
Half-remembered lie 
Where truth is a luxury 
They can’t afford to buy 

The accompaniment takes a break during the chorus, cutting back to a nice punchy kick, sparse guitar (which synchronizes with the bassline), and the tasty brass lines that are generally featured on most of the tracks of this album. Things are kind of orchestrally electronic for a few moments, until the break at 1:36, with just the distorted synth line and the dancey percussion, and then we get back to the verse again:

Backed into a corner 
He barricades his life 
Fastens up the shutters every night 
This island is big enough 
For every castaway 
But most of us are looking round 
For someone else to blame 

And once again, the chorus:

Scapegoat 
Looking for a scapegoat 

There’s always someone else for 
you to blame 

By now we know exactly what to expect from this song – all the elements are pretty firmly established. But just for fun, another quick breaks gives us an almost mournful brass line which sounds a lot like an earlier track called ‘The Big Issue’, especially the last little melody bit, before the trancey snare fill and cymbal crashes pulls us back into the meat of the song again. One more break at 3:52, and we’re done – all the layers play at once, and the track fades out.

Once again, keeping with the album’s practice of sampled intermissions, we get a man admitting tearfully that “Boy – you can know out a bloody good tune, but what the fuck does that matter? Now I’m going to take my boys onto the town. Thank you.”

What does the song mean? I’ve got to admit that the parts I find most appealing are the solid electro-rock areas, especially how the intro resolves into the section at 0:26. The rhythm and sounds are perfectly spot-on, clean and poppy. I like the phrasing in the chorus too, although I change the words a little in my head: “Scapegoats, looking for our scapegoats, there’s always someone else for us to blame.” Culture wars, moral panic, scapegoating, and the resulting witch-hunts are human social phenomenon that I find fascinating (plus I feel a little smug that I have the detachment required to recognize them rather then just getting swept up, or at least I think I do), and my version of the chorus makes it sound like Chumbawamba is observing the same thing.