Here I am in America where drinking songs do not prolifigate in the local pubs. (They call them bars here.) While this does not normally bother me, I noticed that they do not usually have drinking songs.
I didn’t notice this of course until I downloaded a drinking song from Napster.
“He must have been an admiral, a sultan, or a king.
And to his praises we will always sing. . .”
Hell, I’ll sing this song by myself, if I hadn’t convinced my friends to sing it with me.
Irish drinking songs are the best. In fact, there’s an album of those called “All the Best Irish Drinking Songs”, which you can pick up cheap. Many of those tie for my favorite … Waxie’s Dargle, Tim Finnegan’s Wake, Whiskey in the Jar, Spanish Lady, etc.
On this side of the world, there’s “O They Had to Carry Harry to the Ferry”, which they sing a lot in Berkeley. Go Bears!
The Pogues’ “Boys From The County Hell” <Red Roses For Me>
**"And now I’ve the most charming of verandas,
I sit and watch the junkies
the drunks
the pimps
the whores,
Five green bottles, sitting on the floor…
I wish to Christ, I wish to Christ
That I had fifteen more.
Well, it's lend me ten pounds
and I'll buy you a drink,
and NEVER wake me early in the morning
The boys and me are drunk and looking for you,
we'll eat your frigging entrails,
and we won't give a damn
My daddy was a blueshirt
and me mother a "madame"
my brother earned his medals at Mai Lai in Vietnam"**
Everybody, to the tune of “The Star-Spangled Banner!”
To Anacreon in heaven, where he sat in full glee—
A few sons of harmony sent a petition
That he their inspirer and patron would be,
When this answer arrived from the jolly omniscient:
‘With fiddle and flute, no longer be mute—
I’ll lend you my name and inspire you, to boot;
And besides, I’ll instruct you, like me, to entwine
The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus’s vine!’"
A buddy of mine showed me this song many moons ago…he said it was a real song by a real band at one point, but I don’t know who or when. I haven’t seen the guy in ages, but now I always play this when I’ve been drinking.
An excerpt:
Hey I’m a wasted rock ranger
I live the life of danger
On the road to find a higher high
I don’t need no one’s affection,
All I need is my injection
An out-of-tune Les Paul will get me by…
You’re missing something if you don’t get evenings of drinking songs going in the pubs. Heck, we even get them happening a lot in Canada.
You’re looking for drinking songs…no sad ones like “Danny Boy”…let’s see…
Good songs where the subject is alcohol itself:
“Duncan”
“The Pub with No Beer”
“What Shall We Do with a Drunken Sailor”
“The Wild Rover” (Well, alcohol isn’t really the subject but the good part in it is when the singer tells off the pub landlady)
Other general songs we’ve had fun with in the pub:
“The Black Velvet Band”
“The Wild Colonial Boy”
“Farewell to Nova Scotia”
“The Irish Rover”
“Patsy Fagan”
“Whisky in the Jar”
“Mairi’s Wedding”
“Botany Bay”
“Bound for South Australia”
“Maggie May” (The traditional song–not Rod Stewart’s)
“The Unicorn” (Great fun and most people seem to know the chorus.)
“Barrett’s Privateers” (Stan Rogers’ classic must be done a capella of course.)
“I’m Not a Pheasant Plucker” (Get a roomful of drunks singing this one and watch the fun.)
Those should do for a start. I will include one “sad” one that usually gets done at least twice a night in the pubs I’ve been to:
Well, it’s been a while since I’ve gone out drinking, but one of our favorite tunes to sing at the top of our lungs was David Allen Coe’s “You Never Call Me by My Name.” I think that’s the title.
An excerpt:
Well I was drunk the day my mom got out of prison.
And I went to pick her up in the rain
But before I could get to the station in my pick-up truck, she got run over by a damned old train…
And you don’t have to call me darlin’, darlin’.
And you don’t have to call me Charley Pride.
And you don’t have to call me Merle Haggard, anymore
And you don’t have to call me
(I wonder why you don’t call me?)
Why don’t you ever call me by my name?
Yee-haw! Good ole Texas drankin’ songs! Those were some good old days, by golly!
Well, thanks to my hubby being a country music freak, our favorite “rowdy” drinkin’ song is, “Friends in Low Places”, by Garth Brooks. It is quite fitting…especially for my husband’s friends. And my friends as well, when we’re all lit and singing at the top of our lungs.
But we also have a favorite sad drinkin’ song, another tune by Garth, called “The Dance”. Yeah…if you ever want to start a real downpour of tears, get swacked and turn that song on.
Hell, you really don’t even have to be drunk to cry hearing that song. But it sure does add to it.
I bet it’s really difficult to tell I’m from Alabama, isn’t it??
Willie Nelson- Whiskey River
Pat Green- George’s Bar
Merle Haggard- Think I’ll just stay here and drink
Hank Williams Jr.- Family Tradition
Cory Morrow- Drink One More Round
Roger Creager- Love
Robert Earl Keen- Road Goes on Forever
When I was attending a liberal-arts college in the late '80s, my crowd’s favorite drinking song was Yellow Submarine. We went through the verses once, arguing all the while about the words, but went all out on the chorus. Multiple choruses, because we added our own as we went along.
We all live in an orange tangerine…
We all live in a Playboy (porno) magazine…
We all live in a can of Valvoline…
We all live in a jar of Vaseline…
We all live in a tub of margar-eene…
And so on.
“Lighting Bar Blues” by Hoyt Axton, as interpreted by Arlo Guthrie and especially Commander Cody, wherein Lone Star Beer is substituted for Ripple Wine:
"I don't need no diamond ring
I don't need no Cadillac car
Just want to drink my Ripple wine
Down in the Lightnin' Bar."
“A Pair of Brown Eyes” and “The Old Main Drag” by the Pogues, hell anything by the Shane MacGowan era Pogues qualifies.
“Dumas Walker” by the Kentucky Headhunters
“Here Comes a Regular” by the Replacements
Half of the songs by Hank Williams Sr, and “Drinking Wine Spo De Ode” By Jerry Lee Lewis and of course “One Scotch, One Whiskey, One Beer” by George Thorogood.
At first I thought you were asking about songs that you play drinking games with. Of course, the best is “Roxanne” by the Police. The room is divided into two groups. The first group drinks when the word “Roxanne” is sung. The second group drinks when the words “red light” are sung. It gets real interesting towards the end of the song.
Secondly, along the same lines is “I Want You to Want Me”, by Cheap Trick. Same idea, but with three groups drinking on “I”, the second on “want”, and the third on “me”. Very fun. Hint, you get the drunkest on “I”.
But, if you’re talking just straight, drunk singing, I prefer “Piano Man” by Billy Joel.
