Drinking song

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A drinking song is a song sung while drinking, that is, consuming alcohol. Many are bawdy (see Rugby song). Some drinking songs are about drink, but many are not. Groups which still have a drinking song tradition include rugby players, hash house harriers, air force fighter pilots, and fraternities. Most drinking songs are folksongs and show variation from person to person and region to region in both the words and in the tunes used for the song.

Contents 1 Some drinking songs 2 Drinking songs in other languages 3 See also 4 External links 5 References

[edit] Some drinking songs

Some common drinking songs include:

• "Beer, Beer, Beer"
• "Fathom the Bowl"
• "The Fields of Athenry"
• "Eisgekühlter Bommerlunder"
• "Lanigan's Ball"
• "Limericks"
• "The Lady in Red"
• "Barnacle Bill the Sailor"
• "I Used to Work in Chicago"
• "Walking Down Canal Street"
• "The Goddamned Dutch"
• "Wishing All the Ladies"
• "In Mobile"
• "Drunker Than Satan"
• "California Drinking Song"
• "The S&M Man"
• "Seven Drunken Nights"
• "My Name Is Jack"
• "Tequila"
• "I Love a Gang Bang", sung to "The Billboard March"
• "Fuck you, I'm drunk"
• "Barrett's Privateers"

The Star-Spangled Banner's tune is the same as the old English drinking song usually called "To Anacreon in Heaven".

The spiritual "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot" is used as a drinking song by members of the Hash House Harriers and rugby union players with obscene gestures associated with the lyrics. This song is heightened to a drinking game by air force fighter pilots. The first person to fail to correctly make the gestures has to buy the next round of drinks.

"Home for a Rest" by Canadian folk rock band Spirit of the West is a popular drinking song in Canada, often played before last call in Canadian bars and serving as an enduring university and college frosh week anthem. Stan Rogers' "Barrett's Privateers" is another common Canadian drinking song, as is "The Night Pat Murphy Died" by Great Big Sea. "The Mull River Shuffle" by The Rankin Family is another popular drinking song, especially on the east coast.

[edit] Drinking songs in other languages

Drinking songs are sometimes referred to by the German name Trinklieder.

In Sweden, where they are called Dryckesvisor, traditions are upheld to an unusual degree in modern European context. There are songs associated with Christmas, Midsummer, and other celebrations sometimes unique to Sweden. One commonly sung is "Helan går". Although singing songs from Fredmans Epistlar is less usual, Carl Michael Bellman's influence on the Swedish customary preoccupation with the drinking song is considerable.

Drinking songs are an integral part of Finnish student culture, in no small part because of Swedish influence on sitsit. Local songs can be either in Finnish or in Swedish, and either played straight or self-subverting, by e.g. lapsing into Finnish in a Swedish song, or having a "song" consist entirely of the word "NOW!" followed by drinking.

In Spain, Asturias, patria querida (the anthem of Asturias) is usually depicted as a drinking song.

There are several French-Canadian drinking songs (Prends un verre de bière, mon minou, Chevaliers de la table ronde), some of which have even been recorded as singles by folk singers but the most well known is just chanting "Igloo! Igloo! Igloo!" (from "glou-glou", the sound someone makes while drinking) as someone chugs a beer or two just as "Drink! Drink! Drink! is chanted in English-speaking cultures.

The Belafonte Folk Singers recorded in 1959 an album Drinking Songs Around The World RCA LSP1992 with songs from many countries.

[edit] See also

• Rugby song
• Chanson pour boire
• Air à boire
• List of songs about recovering or former alcoholics

[edit] External links

• Lyrics, Music and MP3s for each drinking song
• Hash House Harrier songbook
• Hash House Harrier songbook links
• A Tankard Of Ale An Anthology 120 Of Drinking Songs, complete online book by Theodore Maynard circa 1919
• Drinking songs at California State University

[edit] References

• Cray, Ed. The Erotic Muse: American Bawdy Songs (University of Illinois, 1992).
• Legman, Gershon. The Horn Book. (New York: University Press, 1964).
• Reus, Richard A. An Annotated Field Collection of Songs From the American College Student Oral Tradition (Bloomington: Indiana Univ. Masters Thesis, 1965).