Commemorate Margaret Thatcher's demise by downloading "Ding Dong! The Witch Is Dead" or a new EP from Chumbawamba

By Marah Eakin | April 10, 2013 | 3:20pm

Aux Features Music

Commemorate Margaret Thatcher's demise by downloading "Ding Dong! The Witch Is Dead" or a new EP from Chumbawamba

In life, Margaret Thatcher inspired dozens and dozens of angry songs, from The English Beat’s “Stand Down Margaret” to Morrissey’s “Margaret On The Guillotine.” In death, though, Thatcher is still inspiring musicians. For example, the social media response to her demise has put three different versions of The Wizard Of Oz’s “Ding Dong! The Witch Is Dead” on the U.K.’s top 200 singles chart, including ones by Judy Garland and Ella Fitzgerald.

Anarcho-punk band Chumbawamba has been anticipating Thatcher’s death for years. In 2005, the group pre-sold an EP called In Memoriam: Margaret Thatcher that would be digitally delivered upon the former Prime Minister’s death. It showed up in purchasers' inboxes this week, along with an intense screed from the band about how Thatcher’s “got a one-way ticket to hell” and saying her death is “a cause to celebrate, to party, to stamp the dirt down.” The record also features a track supposedly sung by Augusto Pinochet, the murderous Chilean dictator Thatcher so publicly supported.