Lyr ADD: Poison Beer

Subject: Lyr Req: Poison beer
From: Noreen
Date: 27 Jul 04 - 07:24 AM

I only know the chorus:

Fancy calling it "Poison"
Nasty names like "Poison Beer"
With them I can't agree
For I've drunk gallons and gallons and gallons of beer
And it never did poison me.

A useful song for festivals...
Anyone got the rest of the words, and any info about it, please?

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Poison beer
From: Snuffy
Date: 27 Jul 04 - 09:38 AM

You mean apart from Our Glorious Leader, Nor?

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Poison beer
From: Dave Bryant
Date: 27 Jul 04 - 10:02 AM

I thought there'd already been a thread on this, but I can't find it.
Kevin McGrath has mentioned wanting it. I know that a friend of Vectis (Terry King) often sings it - perhaps she could get the words.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Poison beer
From: Dave Bryant
Date: 27 Jul 04 - 10:39 AM

My old mate Pete Collins, has recorded it on his CD "Old Timer" - I should have his phone number somewhere.

It's also on another CD of Suffolk songs sung by Fred Whiting who said he got it from a friend of his dad's called Cropther Harvey - here's where you can find the details. There's a sound-clip of the first verse and chorus here.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Poison beer
From: Uncle Jaque
Date: 27 Jul 04 - 10:55 AM

"Roll & Go" does a rollicking rendition of a "Home Brew" ballad to the tune of "Barretts' Privateers", which is a real hoot to be sure - but perhaps just a wee bit short of "poison".

Perhaps you could catch Charlie Noble in a good mood and he might share the lyrics, if they ain't already on the DB.

I used to make some of the "good stuff" back in NH that wasn't "poisonous" particularly, but it sure had a way of compromising one's equalibrium and sensorium!

Come to think of it, my last batch of "Dead Dog Cider" wasn't all that bad, either. Most if not all of the Chanty Singers who sampled it during one of our past China Seas Hoots seem to still be among us.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Poison beer
From: Noreen
Date: 27 Jul 04 - 04:29 PM

Ah- THAT'S where I've heard it, Snuffy!!

There are a couple of threads mentioning it Dave, But only the chorus has been posted, by McGoH.

Thanks for input so far.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Poison beer
From: Noreen
Date: 27 Jul 04 - 04:53 PM

Now, Snuffy, I can only picture our leader advising:
Don't marry a man if he drinks!

That's another good one...

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Poison beer
From: Dave Bryant
Date: 28 Jul 04 - 04:35 AM

Here's transcription of the sound-clip of Fred Whiting which I gave the link to above.

I stood there on the village green and heard what the preacher said,
He said if you go on drinking beer you'll very soon all be dead.
He told us beer was poison and it is the devil's brew,
If you carry on drinking the poison beer, it'll be the death of you.

Well now, fancy them calling it poison,
Nasty names called (like ?) poison beer,
With them I can't agree,
For I've drunk barrels and barrels of beer,
And it never did poison me.
No it never did poison me,
For I've drunk barrels and barrels of beer,
And it never did poison me.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Poison beer
From: Kevin Sheils
Date: 28 Jul 04 - 04:43 AM

Will Noble & John Coccking sang it at a live recording for a new CD on Veteran a few months back, but I'm not sure if the CD is out yet, it's not on the Veteran Web site, or whether the track made it to the final listing.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Poison beer
From: Charley Noble
Date: 28 Jul 04 - 12:43 PM

Sounds like an intriguing song.

Uncle Jacque above is referring to "Garnet's Homemade Beer" and our own version of "Dead Dog Scrumpy" which can be found by trolling the threads or the DT.

Charley Noble

Subject: Lyr Add: POISON BEER
From: BB
Date: 28 Jul 04 - 04:34 PM

Pete Collins got it from us, as it says in the notes to his CD. We got it from Jim Jewell of the Isle of Wight, who picked it up from an old singer in East Anglia when he took Bob Roberts up there years ago. We've been singing it for about 20 years - that's a frightening thought! Our words, which may have changed a bit over the years are as follows:


POISON BEER
(Songwriter unknown?)

CHORUS:
Well, fancy them calling it poison,
Nasty names like poison beer;
With them I can't agree,
For I've drunk barrels and barrels of beer
And it never did poison me,
No, it never did poison me;
For I've drunk barrels and barrels of beer
And it never did poison me.

My wife she stood on the village green
To hear what the preacher said;
He said, 'If you go on drinking beer
You'll very soon all be dead,
For beer,' he said, 'Is poison
And 'tis the devil's brew;
If you go on drinking that poison beer
It'll be the end of you.'

My wife she stood and she heard all this,
And she turned to me and said,
'There's no more beer for you, my lad;
Stay out of the old Turk's Head,
For I heard what that preacher said,
And in case it should be true,
I don't want to be a widow yet
And have to bury you.

So I asked my neighbour what he thought,
And he said, 'If you want to know,
If beer is really poison,
Well, it must be awful slow,
'Cos you remember my old dad?
Between just you and me,
He drank his beer for many a year,
And he died at ninety-three.


Enjoy!

Barbara

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Poison beer
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 29 Jul 04 - 09:39 PM

BB: You say "Pete Collins got it from us" -- Who is "us"?

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Poison beer
From: BB
Date: 30 Jul 04 - 04:20 PM

Sorry, Jim. Tom & Barbara Brown

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Poison beer
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 11 Feb 05 - 07:53 AM

refresh

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Poison beer
From: GUEST
Date: 06 May 11 - 04:46 AM

Nick Griffin does a version, i think it is on youtube.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Poison Beer
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 08 May 11 - 12:00 PM

Since I had never heard anyone seriously call beer a poison, I was curious where the concept originated, so I looked and found these quotes:

From Bacchus: An Essay on the Nature, Causes, Effects, and Cure of Intemperance by Ralph Barnes Grindrod (London: J. Pasco, 1839), page 237:

The existence of a bitter principle in malt liquors, combined with a certain proportion of alcohol, certainly is not sufficient to account for the rapid stupor which hopped malt liquors produce on the functions of the human system. The remarks and experience of Professor Mussey, of America, contribute much to elucidate this interesting subject. "In addition," he observes, "to alcohol, which is universally acknowledged to be a poison, beer contains a narcotic principle derived from the hop, which can never be habitually taken, even in small quantity, without injury. All narcotic substances of every name and nature, are known to be poisons. The impressions they make upon the healthy actions of life are always unnatural, uncongenial, and no familiarity produced by habitual use, can make them harmless and healthful like bland and nutrient articles of diet. They disturb the equilibrium of action in the living organs, and bring on premature decay by a needless waste of the principle of life. At the age of twenty years, while occupied during the hay season, upon my father's farm, I drank hop beer for about three weeks, but was induced to discontinue it on account of a peculiar organic weakness, as well as a diminution of the general strength, which I attributed to that beverage. The local disorder immediately subsided, and in about two weeks from the time of ceasing to drink the beer, my strength was restored. The beer was made from a pound of hops, a gallon of molasses, and a barrel of water, with a little yeast to ferment it. This kind of beer was at that time much in vogue among the farmers in the neighbourhood, but it soon fell into disuse, as a drink not the most wholesome." (American Temperance Intelligencer, 1835.)

From Youth's Temperance Manual: An Elementary Physiology by Eli F. Brown (New York: American Book Company, 1888, page 79:

The barley was a healthful grain; but the beer made from it is another instance in which vinous fermentation has changed a food to a poison.

Beer often causes serious diseases of the liver and kidneys, even when only a little at a time is taken.* And it puts the whole body in such a condition that trifling wounds or slight attacks of cold or malaria often end fatally.

Col. Greene, President of the Connecticut Mutual Life Insurance Company, from his unusually large opportunity to study the effects of beer-drinking, says:

'' I protest against the notion so prevalent and so industriously urged, that beer is harmless. ... I had occasion to note the deaths among a large group of persons whose habits in their own eyes, and in those of their friends and physicians, were temperate; but they were habitual users of beer. When the observations began, they were upon the average something under middle age, and they were, of course, 'selected lives,' [that is, none who were known at first to be in bad health were allowed to join the number]. For two or three years there was nothing remarkable to be noted among this group. Presently death began to strike it; and until it had dwindled to a fraction of its original proportions, the mortality in it was astounding in extent, and still more remarkable in the manifest identity of cause and mode. There was no mistaking it; the history was almost invariable. Robust, apparent health, full muscles, a fair outside, increasing weight, florid face; then a touch of cold or a sniff of malaria, and instantly some acute disease, with almost invariable typhoid symptoms, was in violent action, and ten days or less ended it. It was as if the system had been kept fair outside, while inside it was eaten to the shell, and at the first touch of disease there was utter collapse; every fiber was poisoned and weak. And this in its main features, varying of course in degree, has been my observation of beer-drinking every-where. It is peculiarly deceptive at first; it is thoroughly destructive at the last." Of the whole group of alcoholic drinks, beer is said to have the worst effect upon the moral nature, making the drinker selfish and brutal.

* Dr. George Harley, in London Lancet', Feb., 1888.

From The Truth about Alcohol by Richmond Pearson Hobson (Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1914), page 4:

Being the excretion, the loathsome excretions of living organisms, the ferment of germs, alcohol belongs to the family of the toxins. Ferment germs being the lowest forms of life, their toxin, alcohol, is and must always be a poison to all life, a protoplasmic poison. The second finding is that alcohol is a habit-forming drug. The third finding is the most startling. Alcohol is not satisfied with attacking equally all tissues that build up life. It has an affinity, a deadly attack, for the top part of the brain, the line of human evolution. It attacks the line of evolution in plants and animals as well. In this top part of the brain of humanity resides the will power.

Every time a man drinks he takes that much away from his manhood; will power declines. An anaesthetic, like chloroform and ether, that hides the pain and poisoning effect, alcohol fools you and leaves the craving behind, increasing steadily with the drinking. Then, with the will power declining, the habit in time becomes fixed. The use of this habit-forming drug is so widespread and its grip so powerful that to-day there are 5,000,000 American citizens, heavy drinkers and drunkards, who have shackles on their wrists, a ball and chain upon their ankles. A few thousand brewers and distillers to-day own 5,000,000 slaves.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Poison Beer
From: GUEST,Peter Quinn
Date: 26 Feb 17 - 04:05 AM

A cracking song that I found on the net, by accident some months ago, while looking for something else. I feel that the lyrics leave the story rather hanging in mid air so I have been arrogant enough to add a last verse of my own. I have exlained this and sung it several times at my own Club (The Black Swan Folk Club, York) and at the Somers Folk Club in Worcester. It has been well received, so by all means use it if you wish.

My wife she went into the town and bought a paper there
With news of births and marriages and what's for sale and where;
She read my out an article,I s'pose it must me right
It said the temperance preacher dropped down dead on Tuesday night.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Poison Beer
From: Jack Campin
Date: 26 Feb 17 - 07:19 AM

Can we please have a song about Tactical Nuclear Penguin or Orkney Skullsplitter?

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Poison Beer
From: GUEST,padgett
Date: 26 Feb 17 - 08:18 AM

Malcolm Speake has been singing it a long time and I believe Jim Mageean

Ray

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Poison Beer
From: Noreen
Date: 26 Feb 17 - 08:37 AM

Fascinating.
I have no memory of starting this thread, and I'm still planning to learn to sing this song!

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Poison Beer
From: Joe Offer
Date: 15 Jun 20 - 04:49 PM

needs a little editing.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Poison Beer
From: The Sandman
Date: 15 Jun 20 - 05:04 PM

the song was collected by john howson in the 1980s in suffolk, i lived there at the time and remember it being sung by a tradtional singer, i was with john on diffeent occasions when i heard it sung in fact john howson used to sing it himself.
Fred 'Pip' Whiting of Kenton, Suffolk, sang Poison Beer in 1984 to John Howson and Mike Yates. This recording was published in the same year as title track of the album Who Owns the Game? , which was reissued on CD in 2001 on John Howson's Veteran label.
personally due to family circumstances three of my close relatives ending up as alcoholics, i do not care much for the song , and then the leader of the british national party or national front who also used to live in suffolk used to sing it, all of which put me off the song somewhat,.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Poison Beer
From: Noreen
Date: 15 Jun 20 - 07:44 PM

Ha!
I came here to refresh this thread after Poison Beer was sung in tonight's International Mudcat Zoom Sing, and I find that not only did I start the thread, but I've still not learned the song!

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Poison Beer
From: Snuffy
Date: 16 Jun 20 - 03:40 AM

Well, you can't expect miracles - you've only had sixteen years in which to learn it!!