Only just picked up on this thread today (15/02/2023).


The original Bar-Room Mountaineer song WAS written by Davey Clark and I heard it in the late 60s. I didn’t pick up the words and I wasn't keen on its tune, but I loved Davey's concept.

I wrote my version in the early 1970s during a spell of bad weather which I spent flitting between my tent and the old Clachaig Bar in Glencoe. (Now a wee dining room off the main ear-splitting hellhole.)

I aways give Davy the credit for the idea when I sing my version, which is now a bit dated. Here it is:

Tune: Hot Asphalt

Oh come all ye Glencoe Tigers if you’ll only lend an ear,
I will tell you of a creature called the Bar-room Mountaineer
You’ll know him when you see him, when you look him in the teeth
For he’s either on the table, but more often underneath
He look the part and sings and shouts and boasts of all his stunts
In his Joe Brown shirt, his Haston hat and his Bonington Y-Fronts
But the climb that he’s most famous for, he’s known both near and far
Is his nocturnal traverse of the gantry in the Clachaig public bar

On a major expedition, he sets out at 10 o’clock
And a couple of dozen sherpas guide him up the Signal Rock
He uses fixed ropes, walkie-talkies, all the Himalayan tricks
And the exercise is sponsored by Players No 6
He’s well aware high altitude can cause the breath to fail
For he read it in The Sunday Times described by Murray Sayle
So he carries metal cylinders in case his wind gives out
And they’re carefully marked so he can tell the lager from the stout.

Now the Bar-room Mountaineer likes all the comforts of his home
His three gas rings, his camp bed and his heated shaving foam
He like to get up off the ground and climb the Crowberry Tower
But he cannae stand bein’ aff the booze for more than half an hour
So he’s thought up a wondrous plan and this is what’s in store
An instant spray-on Stakis pub on Buachialle Etive Mòr
After you come up the chair-lift, you’ll hear the mountains call
As you sip your half-pint shandy in the lounge on Rannoch Wall

Each Bar-room Mountaineer takes on a different form and shape
And the worst is 36-24-38
Aye, the female o’ the species makes you shudder when you think
For the men, at least, will sometimes even buy you back a drink
She’ll offer you a climbing course, the cost is pretty high
Twenty seven Carlsberg Specials and some vodkas on the sly
It’s the oddest course you’ll ever see for she has the strangest knack
Of teaching all her techniques while she’s lying on her back

When the TV men are in the hills with cameras, film and flex
Hoping some of their star-studded cast will fall and break their necks
You’ll hear one Bar-room Mountaineer describe the vivid scene
And speak of all the danger in a place he’s never been
And all that he is waiting for is lots and lots of gore
To gie him five new viewers and a high TAM rating score
One day it’s bound to happen, that’s the thing that really galls
And when it does I hope the Bar-room Mountaineer’s the one that falls

(Using the second part of the tune)
For he cannae get up a ladder, he can only down a glass
He tries to climb the social scale and ends up on his arse
(Slowly)
But meantime in the evening, when the drink goes to his head
With a superhuman effort, he climbs intae his bed.