A Reminder That Tim Minchin Wrote A Song For Plastic Bag Pissbabies Back In 2005
'Canvas Bags' is the anthem our nation needs.
Back in 2005 Tim Minchin foresaw 2018’s greatest cultural divide — that between normal Australians and the Very Angry Shoppers who simply cannot cope with Coles and Woolworths’ nation-wide plastic bag ban. So he wrote a song to change the world/further piss off the pissbabies.
That song is called ‘Canvas Bags’, an anthemic plea for social change from his debut comedy album, Darkside. It’s kind of like a one-man ‘We Are The World’– but where Bob Geldof and friends sung to raise funds for an ongoing famine in Ethiopia, Minchin had his sights set on environmental issues.
“Take your canvas bags when you go to the supermarket/Why use plastic bags when you know the world can’t take it?”, he sings, truth to power.
It’s a message that must be heard.
Last week, Woolworths paused its plastic bag ban after customers refused to pay 15 cents for reusable plastic bags, claiming they weren’t given enough notice (assumedly having ignored the in-store signage).
Of course, there are some genuine financial concerns in the mix here, given that some shoppers are forced to budget their groceries down to the cent. But we have an odd hunch that the kind of person who yells at the 14-year-old overlooking the self-serve checkout might not be hard of cash.
For now, Woolworths has made reusable plastic bags free to take until July 8, which is this Sunday. Once that’s over, it’s inevitable that the anger will swell again. So remember, it’s worth being extra nice to your checkout server in the next few weeks.
Of course, reusable plastic bags are something of a stop-gap solution. While it’s likely that paying a fee for each bag will encourage reuse, they’re still ultimately made of a material that will never completely break down in the environment.
We must listen to Minchin: canvas bags are the future. Watch his 2006 Melbourne Comedy Gala performance of the song below, complete with a choir, balloons and pyrotechnics. Sing it loud, link it on your uncle’s anti-ban Facebook rant, learn the rap — or just start a petition for Coles Radio to play ‘Canvas Bags’ on repeat.