Nice thread. And another debt we owe to our dear departed Art Thieme.

Lyrics:

One More Whiskey and Water

Daniel Donovan Farrow says this about the song:
This is the only song on the album that I didn’t write. It was written by Mike Jordan, a musician from St. Louis who found some success playing in Chicago, first as a folksinger and then as a rocker; he is remembered with great fondness in Chicago, and in the old music scene in St. Charles, where I first heard about him and this song. It was on a cassette, one of the few that were in circulation, and I had to promise to return it after making a copy. I was quite taken by this number, and felt right away that it was the perfect bar song. Just as David Allan Coe has his ‘perfect country-and-western song’ (You Never Even Call Me By My Name), this is the perfect bar song. It has everything a bar song should have: a little place around the corner, a typical bar name, a juke box, a bar tab and knowing everyone in the joint. And that’s just the first verse. The rest is there, too, whiskey and cigarettes, lost loves, and stale jokes. In the last verse, it’s one for the road while he finds his car keys.

Ironically, Mike Jordan was killed late one Saturday night in 1992 on his way home from a gig, by a drunk driver coincidentally named Robert Michael Jordan. It was two days before his 38th birthday; in his last performance on the night of the accident, he made two unusual ‘in case I die’ comments. It’s not the way we want to go, on the way home from a gig. When I learned this song, I put a lot of effort into trying to play and sing it just like he did – I knew that I would be playing it in front of people who had actually known him, and I didn’t want to offend or disappoint. As far as music rights or publishing rights, I really don’t know if there’s anything in existence. At the very least, I’m trying to preserve a great song by a great songwriter.

One More Whiskey and Water - cover version