Trad. American Drinking Songs?

Subject: RE: Trad. American Drinking Songs?
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 03 Oct 11 - 03:29 PM

THe earliest reference I've found for "Mountain Dew" is an 1860s Civil WAr parody of 'Just Before the Battle, Mother". The "Celtic" "Real Auld Montain Dew" was composed by the American Ned Harrigan.

Subject: RE: Trad. American Drinking Songs?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 03 Oct 11 - 12:51 PM

I would think anything with Mountain Dew or Brown Jugs or Grog would come from the British Isles, those are all celtic terms, no?

Ed McCurdy has a great album called Blood Booze and Bones that has several of the songs mentioned here...

We are too new to have "traditional" songs, anyway, aren't we, the Americans?

Subject: RE: Trad. American Drinking Songs?
From: GUEST,alex brenner
Date: 02 Oct 11 - 01:43 PM

First of first, I'm a yankee doodle dandy i s a great American drinking song, but when you go abroad, or at least when I have, the most popular american drinking song that foreigners are aware of is HOME on the Range.. sing it right now, you already feel like having a little moonshine.

Subject: RE: Trad. American Drinking Songs?
From: Artful Codger
Date: 05 Sep 11 - 05:41 PM

"Don't Swat Your Mother" was published in Porter and Steele's Four Heart Songs of Hearth and Home (New Haven, 1919). The Yale Library has a copy of the sheet music in their holdings. The other songs are "Dry as a camel's tonsils; or, After July, O Lord," "Take me back to no man's land" and "Oh, gosh, ain't I glad to get home."

Would some kind Newhavenite please make a copy (at least of "Don't Swat") and send me a scan? If you PM me, I can furnish an email addy. Then I can post ABC(s) and MIDI(s) to Mudcat for the world to enjoy.

Subject: RE: Trad. American Drinking Songs?
From: GUEST,hard luck jack
Date: 05 Sep 11 - 07:36 AM

What about david allen coe? Blame it on the whiskey & gin,I took my male ego & place it under lock & key,I swore no god dang woman would ever make a fool of me! But then I met this bar made & my whole damn world caved in! Heaven knows when she sucked my toes, I was pu@@y whipped again ,pu@@y whipped again, blame it on the on the whiskey & gin oh lord I'm pu@@y whipped again!
Every david allen coe song had to be written while he was drunk so toss that on the juke box & watch every american hard working blue collar white boy howling like a pack of wolves

Subject: RE: Trad. American Drinking Songs?
From: GUEST,GUEST ketchdana
Date: 18 Feb 11 - 09:59 PM


There are at least two barbershop arrangements of Saloon, Saloon, Saloon.
The melody singer sings and holds the obvious last word while the
other parts sing the echo in (the echo in parentheses).

Saloon -- A Tender Ballad
------ 1919, 1920, 1921 [I kept finding various dates]
Words by George Whiting
Music by Roland E. Llab (Ernest R. Ball)


Verse 1:
I've been looking through the dictionary
For a word that's always running through my (run-ning through my mind).
Though I love the name of Mother, I was looking for another,
And I must confess that word I cannot (word I cannot find).
Can it be that all its glories are forgotten,
And it's buried with the language of the (lan-guage of the Greek)?
If it is 'twill ever linger in my mem'ry
As the first word that I heard my daddy (heard my daddy speak).

Chorus 1:
Saloon, Saloon, Saloon (saloon).
It runs through my brain like a (brain like a tune).
I don't like cafe, And I hate cabaret,
But just mention saloon and my cares fade away.
For it brings back a fond recollection
of a little old low ceiling (low ceiling room).
With a bar, and a rail, and a dime, and a, (sploosh), pail.
Saloon, saloon, saloon.

Verse 2:
I can picture swinging doors wide open.
I can almost see the sawdust on the (sawdust on the floor).
And I dream of pals and cronies drinking highballs, steins and ponies,
I can see the name of (*)"Ehret" on the (Ehret on the door).
But the free lunch counter now is but a mem'ry,
It has vanished with the joys we used to (joys we used to know).
Never more we'll hear that old familiar parting:
Just one drink, boys, just one more, before we (more before we go).

Chorus 2:
Saloon, Saloon, Saloon.
Have you been forgotten (for-got-ten so soon).
You nestled so sweet in that little side street,
So respected, protected by cops on the beat.
Since you've left us the world seems in darkness,
like a cloud passing over the (o-ver the moon).
No more joys in my life, no more lies to my, (gasp), wife. Saloon, saloon, saloon.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
(*) alternates: "I can see the sign says 'Enter' on the door."
"I can see the name of 'Coo-ors' on the door."
A little internet search turned up the info that:
Ehret was not the name of a saloon, it was the top selling American
beer at the turn of the century (1900, not 2000), from German immigrant
George Ehret's Hell Gate Brewery near the East River in
New York City, between 3rd & 2nd Aves, and 91st & 94th
Streets. It would be like having a sign of "Coors" or
"Fat Tire" on the door.
(If you're not from Colorado, USA, it might be like having a sign
of "Guinness", or "Foster's", or "Labatt", "Beck's" ...)

I guess this is really a song about drinking, rather than a
drinking song, as such. Remembering all the words might be
a challenge while imbibing.

=//= ketchdana

Subject: RE: Trad. American Drinking Songs?
From: GUEST,Seonaid
Date: 18 Feb 11 - 07:36 PM

"Quartermaster Corps," anyone?

Subject: RE: Trad. American Drinking Songs?
From: Max Johnson
Date: 18 Feb 11 - 10:42 AM

How about a barbershop song?

"Saloon", "Saloon", "Saloon".
It runs through my head like a tune.
I don't like cafe and I hate cabaret, but just mention "saloon" and my cares fade away.
For it brings back a fond recollection
Of a little old low-ceilinged room
With a bar and a rail and a foam-bedecked pail...
"Saloon", "Saloon", "Saloon".

From the wonderful Yale Songbook, if I remember correctly.

Subject: RE: Trad. American Drinking Songs?
From: GUEST,Ender
Date: 17 Feb 11 - 10:15 PM

I'm not exactly sure how I got here...but it's provided a very nice distraction from the paper I'm supposed to be writing.

Subject: RE: Trad. American Drinking Songs?
From: JWB
Date: 04 Jan 11 - 09:59 PM

Came across this one in a Lomax book, and it is in the DT: Rye Whiskey. For the sake of completeness I'm adding it to this thread.

Click here

Jerry

Subject: RE: Trad. American Drinking Songs?
From: Goose Gander
Date: 28 Dec 06 - 10:56 AM

Refresh for New Years.

Subject: RE: Trad. American Drinking Songs?
From: Haruo
Date: 27 Sep 04 - 02:27 AM

I just posted the Esperanto version of the Whiffenpoof Song in La Lilandejo (my website). The translator/adapter, David B. Richardson, credits Kipling as the author, but it's closer to Whiffenpoof than Gentlemen Rankers:

---

Kanto Ŝafida

Rudyard Kipling/Minnigerode-Pomeroy/David B. Richardson

Al la loko plej amata dum la jaroj de junec',
La drinkejo (ke ni ne forgesu ĝin!)
Nun kunvenis la ŝafidoj kun la glasoj je la tost'
Kaj la gajo de l' kantado ravas nin.
Jes, la gajo de la kantoj, kiujn bone amas ni
Nin kunigas porĉiame en la kor' *

* (aŭ: - La Espero, kaj L'iamo longe for - )

Do ni kantu niajn kantojn ĝis mankos viv' kaj voĉ',
Kaj pli poste—pli silente—pasos for

Ni estas juna ŝafidar': Ba! Ba! Ba!
Malgrandaj ŝafoj en erar': Ba-a-a!
Junaj sinjoroj en gaja ebri', kondamnitaj ĉiuj ni,
Dio kompatu al tiaj ĉi: Ba, ba, ba!

---

Both the DT and the Whiffenpoofs' own lyrics page perpetuate the (probable mis-)attribution of the tune to Tod B. Galloway; as my page and the Whiffenpoofs' history page indicate, the probable composer was Guy Scull, and the roots of at least the lead-off portion of the tune are probably from a Negro Spiritual (and as we know many of those are in turn from Anglo-Irish folk sources).

Haruo

Subject: RE: Trad. American Drinking Songs?
From: Susan of DT
Date: 25 Mar 01 - 11:59 AM

(from dick greenhaus) To me, at least, a drinking song (in England) seems to be a song praising drink: BACK AND SIDE GO BARE, Good Ale, Barley Mow, Landlord Fill the Flowing Bowl, etc. In the States, there are relatively few of these, at least prior to 1900. Most American deinking songs were either warnings about the perils of drink, or songs (like Sweet Adeline) that were sung while drinking. Little Brown Jug is an exception, but I don't know how old it is. Just musing on the Puritan/Methodist ethic in America.

Subject: RE: Trad. American Drinking Songs?
From: Amos
Date: 24 Mar 01 - 05:39 PM

My mother used to sing :Don't Hit Your Mother" to us, not that we tried. She also sang us this drinking song which her father, a civil engineer, used to roar in his cups:

Glorious! Glorious!
One keg of beer for the four of us!
Praise be to God there's no more of us,
'Cuz one of us could drink it all alone!

Repeat ad infinitum...

Regards,

A

Subject: RE: Trad. American Drinking Songs?
From: Les B
Date: 24 Mar 01 - 05:30 PM

Maybe not in the Trad. category, but George Jone's "White Lightnin'" - "Show Me the Way To Go Home" - and it seems that Uncle Dave Macon had some drinking songs, but the titles escape me momentarily.

Are drinking songs about drinking -- or are they the sentimental, easily sung songs that people bawl forth in sloshy three-part harmony when they are drinking ???

Subject: Lyr Add: DON'T SWAT YOUR MOTHER^^
From: GUEST,Roll&Go-C
Date: 24 Mar 01 - 04:40 PM

After a quick sifting of the thread I fail to see some favorites from Oscar Brand's "Drinking Songs" such as The Red Light Saloon and the Rum Runner's Song. Another source of 19th century drinking songs would be READ 'EM & WEEP: The Songs We Forgot to Remember by Sigmund Spaeth; I always liked:

DON'T SWAT YOUR MOTHER
(By Brian Hooker & Porter Steele © 1919)

Homeward to their mother, two working men did come,
Weary from their honest toil and lighted up with rum;
Supper was not ready; one aimed a brutal blow,
When the blue-eyed baby stopp'd them, saying "Brothers, don't do so.
Don't swat your mother, boys just 'cause she's old!
Don't mop the floor with her face.
Think of her love as a treasure of gold,
Shining thro' shame and disgrace;
Don't put the rocking chair next to her eye;
Don't bounce the lamp off her bean!
Angels are watching you up in the sky,
Don't swat your mother, boys, it's mean!"

Subject: RE: Trad. American Drinking Songs?
From:
Date: 24 Mar 01 - 03:32 PM

"REAL OLD MOUNTAIN DEW" was written in the 1880's as an American stage song by Neg Harrigan & seeped into the oral tradition in Ireland.

"GOOD OLD MOUNTAIN DEW" was written in the 20th century by Bascomb Lamar Lunceford in the South.

Subject: RE: Trad. American Drinking Songs?
From: James Stanley
Date: 26 Jun 99 - 10:14 AM

When I was in college in the late sixties, a friend would sing "DRUNK LAST NIGHT". That song is indeed in the folk song database for Mudcat. It has always been my contention that any song which you can sing or hum (depending on your condition while drinking) qualifies as a drinking song. In this case it is usually the singer and not the song.

Subject: RE: Trad. American Drinking Songs?
From: JB3 (inactive)
Date: 26 Jun 99 - 03:54 AM

Would "Seven Nights Drunk" qualify? I know an old version from Madison County N.C. but there are blues and Texas versions as well.

Subject: Lyr Add: ISN'T IT QUEER HOW SOME WOMEN DRINK BEER?
From: Art Thieme
Date: 25 Jun 99 - 12:48 AM

Harp, Vivian Richman of Pittsburgh sang it this way. I did it too for many years.

There was a little man and he had a little can and he used to rush the growler,
He went to a saloon on a Sunday afternoon and you should've heard the bartender holler,

Chorus)
No mor booze, no more booze,
No more booze on a Sunday,
No more booze, no more booze,
Gotta get your can filled Monday.

She's the only gal I love,
With a face like a horse and buggy,
Leaning up against the lake,
Oh, fireman, save my child.

No more booze...no more booze...

_______________________________________________________
Another of Ms. Richman's songs from Pittsburg, PA was this one that I taught to Sally Rogers about 2 decades ago.

ISN'T IT QUEER HOW SOME WOMEN DRINK BEER?

Isn't it queer how some women drink beer,
They drink and they drink and get tight,
And the new license plan--well, it aint worth a damn,
In Soho on Saturday night.

They tell me in Soho on Saturday night,
Most everyone that you meet they are tight,
The men with their bottles and their wives with a can,
And the young girls go browsing the streets like a man.
One woman I met,She got soaking wet,
She fell in the sewer and got soaking wet.

Oh, isn't it queer...

They all toss their drinks,
Carnegie does the same,
As soon as you can drink 'em down, a round of drinks they came,
Oliver, he got blind drunk,
Carnegie couldn't see,
Frick was bad but Mellon was
A damn site worse than me.

Oh, isn't it queer how some women drink beer...

Art Thieme

Subject: RE: Trad. American Drinking Songs?
From: Ferrara
Date: 24 Jun 99 - 10:18 AM

Charlie, yeah, I found out about Mory's Temple Bar, run by Louis something-or-other, (i.e. "the place where Louis dwells") when I followed Joe's link to the official Whiffenpoof web site and read their history, written by one of the original five who started singing together in 1909. What a great site! -- They also describe how the song was written as a parody of Gentlemen Rankers.

This is a fine thread, Dick. - Rita F

Subject: RE: Trad. American Drinking Songs?
From: bseed(charleskratz)
Date: 24 Jun 99 - 02:16 AM

Sandy, that "Moonshine" reads like it's sung to "Casey Jones." Is it? --seed

Subject: RE: Trad. American Drinking Songs?
From: Barbara
Date: 24 Jun 99 - 02:09 AM

And then there's the young man who left his country home and came to the city to seek employment... I knew this one as "THE FATAL GLASS OF BEER", and as I recall it's called something different in DT.
Are satirical anti-drinking songs drinking songs? Like Away with Rum by Gum? I've always thought from the language and the stories that these two and the Inebriate and the Pig were songs from Prohibition or just before.
And Rita, like what you said about a song's age, I tend to think of a song as American if it was in my parents old songbook with things like Jimmy Crack Corn, The Man on The Flying Trapeze, Old Black Joe and Tenting Tonight, but it's an unwarranted assumption.
Blessings,
Barbara

Subject: RE: Trad. American Drinking Songs?
From: Sandy Paton
Date: 24 Jun 99 - 12:39 AM

Dick: You might want to check out my recordings of Frank Proffitt, North Carolina traditional singer. He sings "I'll Never Get Drunk No More," "Moonshine" (Come all you people if you want to hear of the kind of booze we make around here. It's made 'way back in the rocks and hills, where there's plenty of moonshine stills), and one that he wrote himself: "Blackberry Wine." The moonshine song, by the way, also shows up in Morris' Folksongs of Florida. I just got a paperback edition from the big remainder house, Edward Hamilton, Bookseller, in Falls Village, Connecticut. He has a web site. CLICK HERE. See you at Old Songs!

Sandy

Subject: RE: Trad. American Drinking Songs?
From: Rick Fielding
Date: 24 Jun 99 - 12:36 AM

Alton Delmore approached the situation directly when he and Rabon sang "GOODBYE BOOZE".

Subject: RE: Trad. American Drinking Songs?
From: bseed(charleskratz)
Date: 23 Jun 99 - 04:14 PM

Out West we sing "In the Corps" as "On the Farm (the Leland Stanford Junior Farm)":

It's beer, beer, beer that makes you wanna cheer...
It's whisky, whisky, whisky, that makes you feel so frisky...
It's gin, gin, gin that makes you wanna sin...
It's wine, wine, wine that makes you feel so fine...
It's ice cold duck that makes you wanna...

And there's "The Inebriate and the Pig," or is that Irish? __seed

Subject: Lyr Add: O'Riley^^
From:
Date: 23 Jun 99 - 03:13 PM

The 19th Century U.S. Army adapted many foreign tunes and changed the words up, essentially making them American Army drinking songs. "O'Riley" is one in particular that is a lot of fun. It uses an Irish tune, but the verbage is U.S. I've actually marched modern troops to this song and it works, except for some of the slang which is explained below. Some of my lines might be slightly in the wrong order:

O'Riley was a soldier, the finest in Company B.
In all the bloomin' regiment no finer man than he.
He was the ranking Noncom, he knew his business well.
But ever since he tumbled down the pole* O'Riley's gone to Hell.

Chorus

O'Riley's gone to Hell
Since down the pole he fell
He drank up all the bug juice
The whiskey man would sell.
They got him in the mill
They ran him through their still
His bobtail's* coming back by mail
O'Riley's gone to Hell.

O'Riley hit the bottle after six years up the pole.
He blew himself in Casey's place and then went in the hole.
He drank with all the rookies and shoved his face as well.
The whole unit's on the bum
O'Riley's gone to Hell.

Chorus

O'Riley stole a blanket and shoved* it up I hear.
He shoved it for a dolaar and invested it in beer.
He licked the coffee cooler* because he said he'd tell.
He's absent ten days without leave.
O'Riley's gone to Hell.

Chorus

They'll try him by courtsmartial, he'll never stand a chance
To tell them how his mither died or some such song and dance.
You'll soon find him down in Battery Q* a whilin' way the hours,
A big red P stamped on his back,
O'Riley's gone to Hell.

Chorus

*down the pole = off the wagon, went from sober to drunk
*bobtail = discharge
*coffee cooler = goldbrick, yardbird
*Battery Q = guardhouse

---

HTML line breaks added. -JoeClone 25-Jan-2001.

Subject: RE: Trad. American Drinking Songs?
From: Charlie Baum
Date: 23 Jun 99 - 01:32 PM

Rita et al.--

It's "To the tables down at Mory's" [not Maury's]

Mory's Association is a private club in the vicinity of Yale, serving food and alcohol. Around 1909, when the Whiffenpoof Song was written, it was on Temple Street in New Haven, though it moved many years ago to York Street, where it remains today, between Toad's Place and the Hall of Graduate Studies.

--Charlie Baum

Subject: Lyr Add: GENTLEMEN-RANKERS^^^
From: Joe Offer
Date: 23 Jun 99 - 01:10 PM

Thanks for the tip, Dick. I hadn't known that "whiffenpoof" was a parody. here's the Kipling original:

GENTLEMEN-RANKERS
Rudyard Kipling

To the legion of the lost ones, to the cohort of the damned,
To my brethren in their sorrow overseas,
Sings a gentleman of England cleanly bred, machinely crammed,
And a trooper of the Empress, if you please.
Yea, a trooper of the forces who has run his own six horses,
And faith he went the pace and went it blind,
And the world was more than kin while he held the ready tin,
But to-day the Sergeant's something less than kind.

We're poor little lambs who've lost our way,
Baa! Baa! Baa!
We're little black sheep who've gone astray,
Baa--aa--aa!
Gentlemen-rankers out on the spree,
Damned from here to Eternity,
God ha' mercy on such as we,
Baa! Yah! Bah!

Oh, it's sweet to sweat through stables, sweet to empty kitchen slops,
And it's sweet to hear the tales the troopers tell,
To dance with blowzy housemaids at the regimental hops
And thrash the cad who says you waltz too well.
Yes, it makes you cock-a-hoop to be "Rider" to your troop,
And branded with a blasted worsted spur,
When you envy, O how keenly, one poor Tommy being cleanly
Who blacks your boots and sometimes calls you "Sir".

If the home we never write to, and the oaths we never keep,
And all we know most distant and most dear,
Across the snoring barrack-room return to break our sleep,
Can you blame us if we soak ourselves in beer?
When the drunken comrade mutters and the great guard-lantern gutters
And the horror of our fall is written plain,
Every secret, self-revealing on the aching white-washed ceiling,
Do you wonder that we drug ourselves from pain?

We have done with Hope and Honour, we are lost to Love and Truth,
We are dropping down the ladder rung by rung,
And the measure of our torment is the measure of our youth.
God help us, for we knew the worst too young!
Our shame is clean repentance for the crime that brought the sentence,
Our pride it is to know no spur of pride,
And the Curse of Reuben holds us till an alien turf enfolds us
And we die, and none can tell Them where we died.

We're poor little lambs who've lost our way,
Baa! Baa! Baa!
We're little black sheep who've gone astray,
Baa--aa--aa!
Gentlemen-rankers out on the spree,
Damned from here to Eternity,
God ha' mercy on such as we,
Baa! Yah! Bah!

From Project Gutenberg, an amazing collection of electronic texts.
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: Trad. American Drinking Songs?
From: Ferrara
Date: 23 Jun 99 - 12:34 PM

I always thought Tavern in the Town was originally English. Anyone know? I suspect some of the standard college songs go back quite a ways, including the Souse Family, Beer, Beer for Old --- High etc, and "Oh it's Whiskey, whiskey whiskey that makes you feel so frisky in the Corps ... in the Quartermasters' Corps" go back a very long way indeed. I'd say WWII is the latest some of them could have originated. What about soldiers' drinking songs? Dick, you ought to have lots.

I also suspect you'll have to ask somebody's uncle or grandfather if you want any clues to the songs' age. They mostly aren't the sort of things that get written down. I learned a song in the 50's called Dear Old Donegal and I assumed it went back at most to the 30's, but someone here on Mudcat said his father and grandfather had sung it. There's a good chance it was an Irish-American music hall song; and "MacNamara's band" goes back to the 1890's. You just can't tell.

Subject: RE: Trad. American Drinking Songs?
From:
Date: 23 Jun 99 - 11:38 AM

Dick, I don't mean to be flipant (great word), but would "99 bottles of beer on the wall" count? It is certainly traditional... and a drinking song.. ;-)

annap

Subject: RE: Trad. American Drinking Songs?
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 23 Jun 99 - 10:35 AM

Whiffenpoof, if anyoine doesn't happen to know, is a parody of Kipling's "GENTLEMEN-RANKERS" (I'm told that Rudyard wasn't fond of the parody). I think that it dates back to the early 1900s.

Sandy- I don't have a date for the Cheer, cheer for Old Notre Dame parody; I suspect that it's 20th century, though it's clearly folk. If there is an American drinking song tradition, it's likely to be imbedded strongly in college songs and military service songs.

Anybody know how old The Souse Family (Drunk last night, drunk the night before..) is? And how should I handle things like SHOW ME THE WAY TO GO HOME and SWEET ADELINE?

Subject: RE: Trad. American Drinking Songs?
From: Barbara
Date: 23 Jun 99 - 08:14 AM

Is "THERE IS A TAVERN IN THE TOWN" considered a drinking song? What about "JIM(MY) CRACK CORN"? (Depends on what the "corn" was, I suppose).
And along with the Whiffenpoof song (which I love) aren't there some other college drinking songs from the 19th century?
Blessings
Barbara

Subject: RE: Trad. American Drinking Songs?
From: Sandy Paton
Date: 23 Jun 99 - 04:03 AM

I collected an American version of "All Gone for Grog" from a gal in Connecticut who had it from her grandfather who lived in South Carolina. Caroline and I recorded it on our New Harmony (C-100). Can't consider it a genuine "American" drinking song, however, since it has British roots. What about "We never stagger, we never fall; we sober up on wood alcohol... etc." We all grew up singing that one. Was it mentioned earlier? If so, I apologize for the duplication. It's very late!

Sandy (experiencing a senior moment)

Subject: RE: Trad. American Drinking Songs?
From: harpgirl
Date: 22 Jun 99 - 11:32 PM

But Joeseph, my WASP family worshipped the grape...this song was right up there with God Save The Queen....I haven't lived closer than four hundred miles since I left home at eighteen because of the drinking, to tell you the truth...but I loved my grandparents...harpgirl (caught in a rare moment of truth)

Subject: RE: Trad. American Drinking Songs?
From: Joe Offer
Date: 22 Jun 99 - 10:05 PM

Yeah, right. Love and kisses to you, Roger....
Well, actually, I AM quite pleased you found the song for us; but, if you don't mind, I refuse to qet quite as enthusiastic about it as Harpy is. Gee, Harpy, let's not get carried away here.

Rita, note this article about the Whiffenpoofs, an a capella group from Yale.

Click here

for the full story of the Whiffenpoofs. It's well worth your while.
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: Trad. American Drinking Songs?
From: Ferrara
Date: 22 Jun 99 - 08:58 PM

Wow, Joe, THE WHIFFENPOOF SONG is a great addition to this thread. I've always loved it. My memory insists on three corrections to the DT version, though. Since I'm too lazy to see if I have it in a book, I'll admit that my memory often lies, but here are the changes I'd make:

To [not "from"] the tables down at Maury's ...

Sing [not "sang"] the Whiffenpoofs assembled, with their glasses raised on high ...

"Mavourneen" not "Mavoureen."

Were the Whiffenpoofs a glee club or chorus at Yale? Or somewhere? - Rita

Subject: RE: Trad. American Drinking Songs?
From: harpgirl
Date: 22 Jun 99 - 03:54 PM

Roger! I can't believe you found this! Thank you!!! love and kisses...harpgirl

Subject: RE: Trad. American Drinking Songs?
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 22 Jun 99 - 03:42 PM

Jack- The "Irish" one was published in the us, and creditied to Harrigan (of Harrigan and Hart). I'm trying to find a date for the American one--Bascomb Lamar Lunceford claims it, but I'm not sure if it was written by him or just published. Little Brown Jug is mid-1800s; most of the songs mentioned above are 20th century. (Copper Kettle is even the latter half of the 20th century, as is Chig-a-Lug).

I did find that the first use of "mountain dew" for moonshine liquor is 1829, as per Merriam Webster. Just remembered an 1860-ish parody which starts,
Just before the battle mother,,
I was drinking Mountain Dew...

Subject: RE: Trad. American Drinking Songs?
From: Roger in Baltimore
Date: 22 Jun 99 - 03:41 PM

Hey Joe!

You like that song? Well, guess what? It's in the DT: NO MORE BOOZE.

Big RiB

Subject: RE: Trad. American Drinking Songs?
From: Jack (Who is calle Jack)
Date: 22 Jun 99 - 03:23 PM

What's the relation (if any) between the Irish Drinking Song 'Mountain Dew' and the American version? If related which came first?

Subject: RE: Trad. American Drinking Songs?
From: harpgirl
Date: 22 Jun 99 - 03:20 PM

...Joseph...that's all my granddad could get through before my gramma would shush him....da dadadadada da....dadadadada....harpy

Subject: RE: Trad. American Drinking Songs?
From: Night Owl
Date: 22 Jun 99 - 03:17 PM

whoops....cranial meltdown, Dick....you've already got "Mountain Dew"! Still thinking...there MUST be lots more.

Subject: RE: Trad. American Drinking Songs?
From: Joe Offer
Date: 22 Jun 99 - 03:08 PM

Hey, Harpy, are there more verses and a tune to your grandpa's song?
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: Trad. American Drinking Songs?
From: AllisonA(Animaterra)
Date: 22 Jun 99 - 03:08 PM

Ninety-nine bottles of beer on the wall....

Subject: RE: Trad. American Drinking Songs?
From: Night Owl
Date: 22 Jun 99 - 03:06 PM

"Good Old Mountain Dew" I think must qualify...yes????

Subject: RE: Trad. American Drinking Songs?
From: harpgirl
Date: 22 Jun 99 - 03:01 PM

...and my rum-running granddad's song:
There was a little man
and he had a little can
and he took it to the growler
ya oughta heard the old man holler
no beer today, no beer today
we don't sell beer on Sunday
you better come around on Monday...
harpgirl

Subject: RE: Trad. American Drinking Songs?
From: Joe Offer
Date: 22 Jun 99 - 02:48 PM

Say, isn't the WHIFFENPOOF SONG American traditional? This could be a fun thread, Dick.
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: Trad. American Drinking Songs?
From: Alice
Date: 22 Jun 99 - 02:31 PM

This isn't Trad, but.. "Broomstraw Philosophers and Scuppernong Wine". Doc Watson's album credits it to J. L. Wilson.

Subject: RE: Trad. American Drinking Songs?
From: Barry Finn
Date: 22 Jun 99 - 02:06 PM

"SHINGLING THE RUM SELLERS ROOF" recorded by Joe Hickerson on something that I can't remember. I'll check when I get back home. Barry

Subject: RE: Trad. American Drinking Songs?
From: Ferrara
Date: 22 Jun 99 - 12:21 PM

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

Subject: RE: Trad. American Drinking Songs?
From: Ferrara
Date: 22 Jun 99 - 12:13 PM

Is "DOOLEY" trad? I doubt it, but it's a good song.

How about "HOT CORN, COLD CORN, bring along a demijohn"? Well, there's songs about whiskey and drinking, such as "COPPER KETTLE," but that's not the same as the songs that folks actually sang in bars, etc. There were elaborate drinking and tavern songs written in the 17th and 18th centuries, such as "The Tippling Philosophers," (words and tune on request, but you'd better really want it, because it's a *lot* of work), but they aren't trad even though they're old. They never passed into the oral tradition because they were too hard to sing.

This is a good question, Dick! A real challenge.

Subject: RE: Trad. American Drinking Songs?
From: Fadac
Date: 22 Jun 99 - 11:07 AM

Is "Chug-a-Lug" American? Makes you want to holler "Hiddy Hoooo"

-Fadac

Subject: Trad. American Drinking Songs?
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 22 Jun 99 - 11:03 AM

I was having a discussion on this subject with Jeff Warner, who introduced "Boys, Shove Your Grog Around" [RAFTSMAN'S SONG] as the only traditional American Drinking song he knew. I countered with "Johnny, fill up the bowl" [FOR BALES], "RYE WHISKEY", "LITTLE BROWN JUG", "MOUNTAIN DEW" and "FAREWELL TO GROG"

Looking particularly for others that were current in the 19th Century. While I agree that there's no U.S. drinking song tradition to compare with those of England, Ireland, Scotland and Germany, I also think that there should be some others.

Suggestions?