Green Bottles

Hey there. We've got our first guest poster today, with a fine and dandy drinking song to share and rant about. Everybody welcome Tom from La Dimension De Trastos. Take it away Tom:

"First, the caveat: I know very little about Gang Green. I’ve only heard a small percentage of their catalog, and never seen them live. I’ve never read their bio and I don’t know any of their names. So why the hell would I prop them up as some sort of contemporary torchbearers of the drinking song? For the same reason I basically don’t know shit about them. Until very recently, I had only heard them while stinking drunk. There was simply no need for peripherals.

Unlike the cry-in-your-beer variety, or even "happy" drinking songs, Gang Green gets to the point. And the point is, rather their point is, to get thoroughly trashed. Not tipsy, buzzed, loaded or any other semi-apologetic state of drunkenness. Just full-on, "fuck my job, fuck my boss, fuck my landlord and while I’m at it, fuck your landlord too"-type drinking.

Their image is crudely but effectively crafted, heavy on the beer references. I’m sure that’s what initially attracted me. It’s not hard to sell a record to an alcoholic if it’s about drinking and has five different images of Budweiser on the cover. (I know there’s five because when I was drunk I got out the trusty Sharpie and circled them; probably so I could spot them when I sobered up.)

While their music is atypical drinking music to most (one part skate culture, one part hardcore, a little metal and four cases of Budweiser), to a particular type of drinker it is drinking music at it’s most potent. To wit, a sample lyric (from "Alcohol"): "I’d rather drink than fuck!" It isn’t likely that a more declarative drinking statement exists. No, this is not music for lounge lizards, barflies or the anthropological "let’s go to a dive bar" drinkers. It is the soundtrack for eviction parties (best peppered with "ashtray-missed-your head by that much," "if you’re going to waste it, throw a whole can," and "why are there footprints on the wall?" type conversation).

So, honestly, I’ve resisted the urge to learn anything more about Gang Green other than what I’ve come across incidentally. To analyze their music (including this introduction) goes against their very substance. Luckily, effects can be neutralized. Talk to the guy hovering by the keg with the giant cup. He will debrief you."

Gang Green: Alcohol (mp3)

Gang Green’s MySpace page (Four downloads. Recommended: "Alcohol" and "LDSB" ["Lets Drink Some Beer"]:

Gang Green’s Official Site

I Like Beer

Yum.

Tom T. Hall's "I Like Beer" came in at #47 on the Top 100 Drinking Songs list.

It's a swell tune, if not the most subtle of songs. Heck, the title pretty much says it all. We'd only have one quibble. We think that whiskey is just fine, thank you. And vodka certainly serves an important purpose in the world.

We'll let the song and the lyrics speak for themselves. We do indeed like beer.

"In some of my songs I have casually mentioned
The fact that I like to drink beer
This little song is more to the point
Roll out the barrel and lend me your ears

I like beer
It makes me a jolly good fellow
I like beer
It helps me unwind and sometimes it makes me feel mellow
(Makes him feel mellow)

Whiskey's too rough champagne costs too much
And vodka puts my mouth in gear
This little refrain should help me explain
As a matter of fact I like beer
(He likes beer)

My wife often frowns when we're out on the town
And I'm wearing a suit and a tie
She's sipping vermouth and she thinks I'm uncouth
While I yell as the waiter goes by

I like beer...

Last night I dreamed that I passed from the scene
And I went to a place so sublime
All the water was clear and tasted like beer
Then they turned it all into wine

I like beer...
(Yes he likes beer)"

Tom T. Hall: I Like Beer (mp3)

Please support your local brewer.

A Six Pack To Go

Drinky, drink, drink.

Today it's #28 on the Big Rock Candy Mountain/Barstool Mountain Top 100 Drinking Songs list.

Hank Thompson's a favorite 'round these parts, perfecting the art of the drinking song, along with Johnny Bond, near about the time George Jones discovered his first taste of White Lightning. Ah, hell, my timeline might be a little off.

Combining the best of Bob Wills' texas swing with a keen eye of a barroom poet, Thompson is a strong contender for our Poet Laureate (we've already got a Patron Saint.).

Not sure how many states still allow a "take out" license for bars as the the night grows long and Sunday blue laws loom in the headlights. The following song is a testament to the stumbling days of closing-time preparation, where the fog of the night cannot dim the hope for tomorrow's salvation.

Recommended reading: The Ginger Man by J.P. Donleavy

Okole maluna!

Hank Thompson: A Six Pack To Go (mp3)

Support your local pub. Do you really need to find yourself at an Appleby's? We thought not.

Some Bartenders Have The Gift Of Pardon

Well.

Now that the Top 100 Drinking Songs has run it's course, and the list is complete, I figger we'll get down to business and start covering drinking songs. Nothing but drinking songs. We'll get to the individual tunes that made the Top 100 over time. But we'll also going to cover any and all things drinking song-related too.

Normally we'll be posting about a single song, as opposed to an overview of a specific artist, but we're going to start this off we're gonna raise a toast to Mark Eitzel and American Music Club.

Mark Eitzel is a miserable bastard. He also happens to be a brilliant songwriter, with a keen eye for the underbelly of human interaction.

With The American Music Club, and through a spate of solo albums, Eitzel concocts a rare brew of observation, mining the corners of humanity through some of the darkest humour put to song. He also has a penchant for hilariously absurd song titles. AMC provides the perfect backdrop for Eitzel's bastardy, creating sonic landscapes both lush and persnickety, as the lyrics call for. And some of the prettiest steel guitar stylings this side of the honky tonk.

Eitzel has been known to enjoy a beverage now and again. In fact, it was an Eitzel show at the much-missed Stache's in Columbus that convinced my buddy Ryan and I that it was all right to be seen drinking Long Island Iced Teas in public.

Eitzel's drinking songs are more contemplative, of course, making small mythologies out of the dive bar and the bartender, granting each a supernatural power: to forgive or save. All peering from the bottom. They can also be painfully funny, as in "Gary's Song".

Please enjoy some inebriation courtesy of Mark Eitzel and The American Music Club. We'll be back shortly with a tune from the Top 100.


American Music Club: Outside This Bar (mp3)

Mark Eitzel: Some Bartender's Have The Gift Of Pardon (mp3)

American Music Club: Gary's Song (mp3)

American Music Club: Jesus' Hands (mp3)

Top 100 Drinking Songs

Presented below is the Big Rock Candy Mountain/Barstool Mountain Top 100 Drinking Songs list in all it's full, uninterrupted glory.

We'll fix this up in a spiffier fashion, and possibly a more easily save able manner, as time goes by. For now, this should provide you with a fuller view of how the list turned out.

This is now the official home of the Top 100 list, and we'll be getting up full posts (With MP3's!!!!) on both the Top 100 list, any other drinking songs that strike our fancy, and anything drinking song oriented our guest posters want to cover.

Look for our first post this Friday.

Here it is.

The Big Rock Candy Mountain/Barstool Mountain Top 100 Drinking Songs


1. One Scotch, One Bourbon, One Beer - Amos Milburn
2. Don't Come Home A Drinkin'(With Lovin' On Your Mind) - Loretta Lynn
3. Whiskey In the Jar - Traditional
4. Drinkin' Wine Spo-Dee-O-Dee - Various
5. White Lightnin'- George Jones
6. Don't Take My Whiskey Away From Me - Wynonie Harris
7. Quiet Whiskey - Wynonie Harris
8. Streams of Whiskey - Pogues
9. There Stands the Glass - Webb Pierce
10. The Piano Has Been Drinking(Not Me) - Tom Waits
11. Little Ole Wine Drinker Me - Dean Martin
12. Chug A Lug - Roger Miller
13. Here Comes A Regular - The Replacements
14. Barstool Mountain - Johnny Paycheck/Moe Bandy
15. The Bottle - Gil Scott Heron
16. One More For My Baby(And One More For the Road) - Frank Sinatra
17. There's A Tear in My Beer - Hank Williams
18. I Gotta Get Drunk - Willie Nelson
19. What's the Use of Getting Sober (When You're Gonna Get Drunk Again)- Louis Jordan
20. I Aint Drunk - Jimmy Liggins
21. Tequila - The Champs
22. Pass The Booze - Ernest Tubb
23. Bloodshot Eyes - Wynonie Harris
24. What's Made Milwaukee Famous(Has Made A Loser Out Of Me) - Jerry Lee Lewis
25. Bubbles In My Beer - Bob Wills
26. Intoxicated Man - Serge Gainsbourg
27. Rye Whiskey - Various/Tex Ritter
28. A Six Pack To Go - Hank Thompson
29. Gin and Juice - Snoop Dogg/The Gourds
30. Tonight the Bottle Let Me Down - Merle Haggard
31. Drunk - Jimmy Liggins
32. In Heaven There Is No Beer - Traditional
33. Cigareets and Whiskey and Wild Wild Women - Various/Buck Owens
34. Hey Bartender - Floyd Dixon
35. Gin House Blues - Nina Simone
36. Let Me Go Home Whiskey - Amos Milburn
37. Rhythm and Booze - Corky Jones(Buck Owens)
38. Who Drank My Beer (While I Was In the Rear) - Various/Dave Bartholomew
39. Whiskey You're the Devil - Traditional/Clancy Brothers
40. Bloody Mary Morning - Willie Nelson
41. If Drinking Don't Kill Me - George Jones
42. One Mint Julep - trad/sarah vaughan
43. Fifteen Beers - Johnny Paycheck
44. Sloppy Drunk - Jimmy Rogers
45. Sally MacLennane - Pogues
46. I Got Juiced - Jimmy McCracklin
47. I Like Beer - Tom T. Hall
48. Whiskey Do Your Stuff - Louis Jordan
49. Wine Women and Whiskey - Papa Lightfoot
50. Who Threw the Whiskey In The Well - Wynonie Harris
51. Swinging Doors - Merle Haggard
52. Let's Go Get Stoned - Ray Charles
53. On Tap, In The Can, Or In the Bottle - Hank Thompson
54. Wine Wine Wine - Floyd Dixon
55. Two Six Packs - Away Dave Dudley
56. Whiskey River - Willie Nelson
57. Mountain Dew - Trad
58. Bad Bad Whiskey - Amos Milburn
59. I Think I'll Just Stay Here And Drink - Merle Haggard
60. Misery and Gin - Merle Haggard
61. Pop A Top - Jim Ed Brown
62. Pabst Blue Ribbon - Untamed Youth
63. Roadhouse Blues - The Doors
64. Six Pack - Black Flag
65. She Said - Hazil Adkins
66. Whiskey Heaven - Fats Domino
67. Booze Party - Three Aces and A Joker
68. Give Me A Red Hot Mama and An Ice Cold Beer - Smiley Maxdon
69. The Whiskey Makes You Sweeter - Laura Cantrell
70. Day Drinkin' - Dave Dudley and Tom T. Hall
71. Margaritaville - Jimmy Buffet
72. Rum and Coke - Professor Longhair
73. When I'm Drinking - Champion Jack Dupree
74. Dim Lights, Thick Smoke And Loud Loud Music - Various/Vern Gosdin
75. She's Acting Single, I'm Drinking Doubles - Gary Stewart
76. Whiskey Bottle - Uncle Tupelo
77. I'm at Home Getting Hammered(While She's Out Getting Nailed) - Banjo and Sullivan
78. Jack Daniels If You Please - David Allen Coe
79. Gonna Drink Milwaukee - Dry Charlie Walker
80. Last Night - The Mar-Keys
81. Looped - Calvin Bose
82. My Baby Got Drunk - Paul "Wine" Jones
83. Good Old Mountain Dew - Grandpa Jones
84. Let's Get Drunk Again - Bo Carter
85. Hangover Tavern -Hank Thompson
86. One Shot - Mono Men
87. The King Is Gone - George Jones
88. I Got Loaded - Peppermint Harris
89. What A Way To Die - Pleasure Seekers
90. It Was The Whiskey Talkin' (Not Me) - Jerry Lee Lewis
91. Kiss Me I'm Shitfaced - Dropkick Murphys
92. Alligator Wine - Screaming Jay Hawkins
93. Wasted - Black Flag
94. Two More Bottles of Wine - Delbert McClinton
95. Little Streams of Whiskey(The Dying Hobo) - Traditional
96. The Wild Rover - Traditional
97. Blues Plus Booze - Stonewall Jackson
98. Stomp Them Grapes - Mel Tillis
99. Too Drunk to Fuck - Dead Kennedys
100. Green Beer - Scrawl

I Can't Go Home Like This

Yep.

There's an mp3 further down.

This is the final installment of the vote-getters in Big Rock Candy Mountain's Top 100 Drinking Songs. But don't get a tear in yr beer quite yet.

Starting Monday we become the official home of the Top 100 list. We'll be posting about individual songs in the big list, and much, much more. Song samples (for evaluation purposes, of course) galore! We'll be covering all songs drinking, and we'll be your one-stop shop for all the boozy tunes you crave. We've got several guest posters lined up, and we encourage any of you to contribute. Any songs we've missed? Tell us about it. Great tunes that deserve more attention? Tell us about it.

We're aiming for two posts a week. Monday to help you recover, and Friday to get you ready for the weekend.

Pithy observations! Keen analysis! Swell rockin' tunes! Naked...well, probably no nudity.

We aim to please here at Barstool Mountain. Music for the people and by the people.

Come back Monday for our inaugural non-countdown post. I'm thinking we'll have a feller who's intials are M.E. to start us off. His band's initials are AMC, and he's created a besotted body of work over the last 20 years that would make the ocean proud.

Thanks for visiting.

276. Sangria Wine (Jerry Jeff Walker)
277. Whiskey 'n' Mama (ZZ Top)
278. I Can't Go Home Like This (Ray Price)
279. For You (Sid Starr)
280. Take Your Whiskey Home (Van Halen)
281. 99 Bottles Of Beer On The Wall (Traditional)
282. Red Necks, White Socks, and Blue Ribbon Beer (Johnny Russell)(mp3)
283. Pink Elephants On Parade (From the film Dumbo, perfectly covered by Sun Ra and His Arkestra)
284. Alcoholic Blues (Tampa Red)
285. The Girl Behind The Bar (Stanley Brothers)
286. Wine Don't Lie (Dale Watson)

Two Beers Away

The reviews are in! Barstool Mountain is now the hottest topic at...erm...Robbie Fulks' message board? God bless referrer tracking, or I would have missed that fascinating discussion altogether. Apparently we've ruffled a few feathers over at the lonely hearts club. You know the comic book guy from The Simpsons? I bet he posts on message boards quite a bit. To be honest, I have no idea what they're talking about. Apparently something (a web site? a radio show? a series of live shows? it's hard to tell) existed at some point, somewhere, called Barstool Mountain, and they have the exlusive right to appreciate the song. I can't resist inserting a quote from the above-linked discussion:

"But of course, for us, the name Barstool Mountain means so very much more than that. Barstool Mountain is but a metaphor and I think we aim a little higher. He's raising a glass to Dino and the Rat Pack, and that's cute and fun, but we're reaching for something much more serious and profound. Barstool Mountain for us is the place of total enlightenment. The unachievable achievement, the unknowable known, the summit beyond all summits. It is the means for a spiritual end which goes far, far beyond the ephemeral buzz of a double martini, and into the realms of the eternal fountain of rapture, the nectar of the gods. The peak of forever."

I'm sure that was part of Moe Bandy's artist's statement.

Sounds like somebody needs a stiff drink. Methinks I smell bitter and nostalgic (stomped) grapes.

Faithful readers of both Mountains (our parent site, Big Rock Candy and Barstool), I would like to make a promise to you. We will never, ever, ever take ourselves that seriously here. We will never descend into some drippy naval-gazing assessment of the songs and music we like. Here at the Barstool, we're going to post about drinking songs. Drinking songs from all genres. Songs you can sing along to with your friends, songs you can raise a glass to during the wee small hours.

We would never wish to exclude anyone here at the 'Mountain. We're socialists at heart, and elitism, particularly when applied to the drinking song, is anathema to us. Which is why we strongly encourage each and every one of you to tell us what great songs we're missing. If you feel strongly enough, you can be a guest poster, or a regualar poster. We're opening up the tap here. Drinks are on the house, and anybody and everybody can have a voice. Leave a comment or email us at barstoolmountain@gmail.com. We'd even gladly welcome the folks from the Robbie Fulks Message Board to issue their rebuttal as to why we lack the abstract criteria to refer to ourselves as Barstool Mountain. I'll post it complete and unedited. I have a suspicion that they'll be too busy hiding in the safety of their cave.

For the record, the quote in the header above (the one about the popsicle) is a facetious quote attributed to the "cute" Dean Martin. And it's been a long while since we've been a "kid".

The Grappa portion of the supplement to Big Rock Candy Mountain's Top 100 Drinking Songs will appear tomorrow. Starting next week, we get rolling for real. More listage below.

Thanks for stopping by. You are as important as anyone else out there.



261. More Good Whiskey Blues (Peetie Wheatstraw)
262. Sunday Morning Coming Down (Johnny Cash)
263. You Drink Too Much (State Street Swingers)
264. Barroom Girls (Gillian Welch)
265. Boob Scotch (Bob Log III)(mp3)
266. They Left Me Holding The Bottle (Ray Pillow)
267. Devil In The Bottle (Vern Gosdin)
268. Spill The Wine (War)
269. Two Beers Away (Moe Bandy)
270. Drinking Too Much (Fred Eaglesmith)
271. Somebody Buy Me A Drink (Oscar Brown)
272. Beer Drinkin' Blues (Kaddie McAce)
273. Beer Drinkin' Daddy (Eddie Noack)
274. Drinkin' Wine (Gene Simmons)
275. Dirty Hangover Blues (W. Lee O'Daniel)