Lyr Req: Here's To The Cr'ater

Subject: Here's To The Cr'ater
From: Clinton Hammond2
Date: 02 Oct 00 - 06:10 PM

Anyone know this chorus??

Here's to the cr'ater
The best thing in nature
For sinking your sorrows
And raising your joys

???

Anyone got the rest of this song??

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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Here's To The Cr'ater
From: MartinRyan
Date: 02 Oct 00 - 06:15 PM

Its in the DT as "The Humours of Whiskey" - Click Here

Regards

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Here's To The Cr'ater
From: Clinton Hammond2
Date: 02 Oct 00 - 06:22 PM

ta very much Martin... I knew it had a real name, I just couldn't think of the frigg'n thing...

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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Here's To The Cr'ater
From: MartinRyan
Date: 02 Oct 00 - 06:26 PM

Clinton

It's often known as "Stick to the Craytur" in fact.

Regards

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Here's To The Cr'ater
From: mousethief
Date: 02 Oct 00 - 06:27 PM

Mebbe I'm stoopid or somethin' but what's the craytur that the song refers to?

Alex
O..O
=o=

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Here's To The Cr'ater
From: Clinton Hammond2
Date: 02 Oct 00 - 07:03 PM

A 'drop o the crater' refers to a drop of moonshine... moonshine beng knows as Gods drink... cra'ter is short for Creater... Or that's the way -I- heard the tale...

I'm sure there are probably a million others as well...

{~`

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Here's To The Cr'ater
From: Snuffy
Date: 02 Oct 00 - 07:05 PM

I always thought it was the Irish pronunciation of creature in its original meaning of something created.

Wassail! V

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Here's To The Cr'ater
From: Seamus Kennedy
Date: 03 Oct 00 - 12:02 AM

Snuffy's right. Seamus

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Here's To The Cr'ater
From: Robby
Date: 03 Oct 00 - 09:33 AM

I'll agree with Snuffy and Seamus. The "creature" as my grandfather learned the meaning from his Da, who came from Ireland in the 1870s, referred to none other than the water of life uisge beatha, or whiskey. At least that's the way it was in our house.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Here's To The Cr'ater
From: MartinRyan
Date: 03 Oct 00 - 09:57 AM

As in Finnegan's Wake : "...he'd a drop of the crayter every morn.."

Regards

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Here's To The Cr'ater
From: Sorcha
Date: 03 Oct 00 - 10:01 AM

I always figured it was the cray'tur that got on your back and wouldn't let go--as in alchoholism.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Here's To The Cr'ater
From: GUEST,Ian M.
Date: 03 Oct 00 - 10:25 AM

I think this is also called "Paddy's Panacea" and was the title track of an old LP by, I think, Tom Lenehan.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Here's To The Cr'ater
From: MartinRyan
Date: 03 Oct 00 - 10:28 AM

Ian

True - one of the best versions of it around.

Regards

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Here's To The Cr'ater
From: Clinton Hammond2
Date: 03 Oct 00 - 02:13 PM

I think the version I heard was silly wizard... And I have to admit, it's better than any version I've found on napster yet...

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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Here's To The Cr'ater
From: GUEST,Kate Akers
Date: 03 Oct 00 - 03:32 PM

This song is also called The Humours of Whiskey. You can find the words, a few notes about the song and a sound clip of it being sung here: http://www.chivalry.com/cantaria/lyrics/humours.html

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Here's To The Cr'ater
From: Clinton Hammond2
Date: 03 Oct 00 - 04:31 PM

Thanks Kate! It's always good to get just one more version of the tune...

But I'm unable to get your MP3 to play... I'll try a few different players when I have time later...

{~`

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Here's To The Cr'ater
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 03 Oct 00 - 07:39 PM

Does anybody know anything about the history of this song? It's so cleverly written, so complex, with internal rhymes and so on, that it can't have just evolved by the folk process. I have a hunch it was written not too long ago.

Here's an article about Marc Isambard Brunel which says his tunnel was started in 1825, so I suppose that establishes an earliest possible date. I understand his tunnel was called the Thames Tunnel as long as it remained the ONLY tunnel under the Thames, but after the second one was built, it became known as the Rotherhithe Tunnel. Is this right? If so, if we knew the date of the second tunnel, it might establish a latest possible date. That's assuming the writer wasn't deliberately trying to make the song sound older than it really is, of course.

Anybody else have any info or insights?

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Here's To The Cr'ater
From: MartinRyan
Date: 04 Oct 00 - 03:53 AM

Folklorist Tom Munnelly collected songs from Tom Lenehan over many years, publishing them in a lovely tape/book package called "The Mount Callan Garland" a year or so ago. He gives details on this one.

Lenehan learned the song from an American songbook "617 Irish Songs and Ballads" sent to him by his sister in America. He fitted the jig tune "Larry O'Gaff" to it and its this version everyone sings. I have a date somewhere for the book - I'll check it later.

The earliest version Munnelly could find was in "The Emerald Isle Songbook" , published in 1899 in Dublin. The words are credited to one Joseph Lunn (no dates) and a tune called "Ireland so Frisky" is recommended. Lenehan's version, incidentally, omits one verse of the original - Munnelly speculates because it is difficult to scan to his tune.

Regards

BTW There's a lione in the first verse usually rendered as ".. the true physic to matters pathetic" or ".... to bother pathetic" (Lenehan's version). The original was "... physic to bother phthisis.."! It's a pulmonary disease.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Here's To The Cr'ater
From: MartinRyan
Date: 04 Oct 00 - 04:00 AM

In fact, there's no date listed for t he "617 Irish SOngs " bookk - my guess is 1920's or '30's.

Regards

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Here's To The Cr'ater
From: GUEST,David Ingerson
Date: 04 Oct 00 - 04:27 AM

Being a little picky, as I sometimes like to be, I'd like to point out another corruption in the Silly Wizzard version.

For at school or at college the bolus of knowledge I never could gulp till with whiskey combined.

Bolus, not basis.

A bolus is like a cud, a mouthfull of food. It fits nicely with the image of gulping.

It's a mighty song and deserving of much singing.

David

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Here's To The Cr'ater
From: MartinRyan
Date: 04 Oct 00 - 05:27 AM

Here's the verse Tom Lenehan omits. As a chemist by background, I like it! Despite Tom Munnelly's comment, I think you can make line 6 scan.

Let philosophers dabble in science and babble
'Bout Oxy-gin, Hydro-gin, Nitro-gin's fame
For their gin, to my thinking, is not worth the drinking
Their labour's all lost and their learning a drame
They may prate by the score of their elements four
That all things earth, fire, air and water must be
For their rules I don't care, for in Ireland I'll swear
By St. Pat there's a fifth and that's whiskey, machree!

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Here's To The Cr'ater
From: GUEST,Philippa
Date: 25 Jul 02 - 12:40 PM

I have just been looking through a copy of James Hardiman "Irish Minstrelsy" vol 1 London:1831, facsimile edition Shannon:Irish University Press, 1971. A song in it reminded me of this one, "Leithios gach galar an t-uiscidhe" translated by Thomas Furlong as "Whiskey is the potion that can cure every ill." Although the sentiments of the Gaelic song and Humours of Whiskey/Stick to the Craythur are the same,at first glance I don't consider them versions of the same song>

I'll just give a verse of the translation:
At the dawning of the morn, ere you start from the bed,
Try and clear away the vapours which the night has shed,
If drowsy or if dull,
Of the bottle take a pull,
And comfort thro' your bosom the gay draught shall spread:
Moist'ning, cheering, life-endearing,
Humour-lending, mirth-extending --
Be the whiskey ever near thee thro' the day and the night;
'Tis the cordial for all ages,
Each evil it assuages
And to bards, and saints, and sages
Gives joy, life and light."