I suspect that "Rum by Gum" [AWAY WITH RUM] and "The Nurse Pinched the Baby" are true American drinking songs. Both are tongue-in-cheek temperance songs.Also, you get bawdy cowboy songs such as "The Old CHISHOLM TRAIL" which I'm sure were sung in dance halls etc by a rowdy drinking crowd. But that doesn't quite make them drinking songs because they are only incidentally about drinking.
When I was in college, we had dozens of favorites including "THE WINNIPEG WHORE," to the tune of "GOOD FISH CHOWDER," and "HAVE SOME MADEIRA, M'DEAR" which is of course not trad. Then there were crude things like "WALTZ ME AROUND AGAIN, WILLIE" and "ROLL YOUR LEG OVER." I think those would have to count. Also "THE LADY IN RED," i.e. "'Twas a cold winter's evening, the guests were all leaving, O'Leary was closing the bar...." My two-year-old cousin learned that from his grad-student dad in 1963 or so, which means he learned it in the oral tradition QED. Then there was "THE DRUNKEN MOUSE," ie "The liquor was spilled on the barroom floor ... " and The THE FROZEN LOGGER. The trouble with American drinking songs, perhaps, is that "real" folkies don't consider them folk songs because everybody sings them, not just folkies! -- Think about it. - Rita F
This is fun! - Rita F