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About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (April 21, 1988)
- - Drinking songs and drinking have become a tradition SONGS from Page 7 morose verses about staying in the comer tavern until closing time and then heading out into the savage ele ments to contemplate and romanti cize your drunken stupor. It took me a while to get Bill to listen to this because he insisted any song I liked this much must have been played by a bunch of skinny fops with silly haircuts twiddling knobs on a synthesizer or beating on guitar strings with roadkill. But the resem blance of the first bars of this song to “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door” put his narrow mind at ease. 3. “Like a Rolling Stone” by Bob Dylan. This is a great drunk song because of its length. It’s kind of “99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall” for writer types. Dylan’s lyriesare so vehement that he often became the third party in a drunken conversation. When Dylan nailed his victim with “How does it feel?" Bill and I were ready to go out and kill the feeble no-count Bob was so pissed at. Where’s my handgun? 4. “Up on Cripple Creek” by The Band. “Up on Cripple Creek she sends me/if I spring a leak she mends me/I don’t have to speak, she defends me/ a drunkard’s dream, if I ever did see one.” ‘Nuff said. 5. “Rain Dogs” LP by Tom Waits. Almost any album by Waits is drunkard-friendly. Waits’ “If you tell me it’s last call, I’ll jus’ have to go outside and suck on some kerosene-soaked rags” delivery is aural Wild Turkey. He bites and growls hep beat poetry as the band thumps out some lounge jazz or sounds like a carnival from 3 miles away. It’s always 3 a.m. in Waitsworld. 6. “I Must Have Been Drunk (When I Said I’d Stop Drinkin’)” by George Jones. Country music is reserved for that fragile time between purchasing whatever virtually undrinkable com bination of intoxicants will spur the night’s liquor Lupercal and the con sumption of the first two or three drinks. It’s good to feel like a big, strong cowboy when you begin and then end up a sensitive philosopher. The bigger the cowboy at first, the better you feel about philosophizing later. It’s a known fact. This is a fine big cowboy song. 7. “Baby Please Don’t Go” by John Lee Hooker. Almost any old blues will do. Just make sure you scratch ‘cm up real nice, though, before you need them. This is one of those songs that sounds best through old eight-track speakers that you’ve managed to jury-rig onto your stereo receiver. Hooker just stamps his feet and wrings the life out of his lone electric guitar, mumbling about his baby. You can ’ t hear the ends of any sentence, or any word for that matter, and that’s as it should be. 8. The “Old Yeller” soundtrack. I could never gel Bill to sit through all of this with me, but even he liked it when I played the part where the rabid mongrel gets shot. He’d always go to the bathroom during it, but I knew he was listening. He’d come out with his eyelids all swollen and his cheeks all red. Just the sound of Fess Parker’s voice is comforting while your peripnerai vision uisappcaia. 9. “Take It Easy” or “Take It to the Limit” by the Eagles. Bill would have stuck these a lot higher up on the list, but hey, tell it to the Paraguayans. 10. “Family Tradition” by Hank Williams Jr. or “Lost Highway” by his daddy. The first is a tall tale; the second is gospel. Depends on your mood, I guess. Bill liked “Family Tradition,” but then Bill would have put “Margari • taville” first on the list. This is perfect stuff for drinking and driving. Of course, Bill and I never drank and then drove and cer tainly no one in their right mind would, but we thought about it. When we thought about it, we thought of these songs. Sometimes we’d line up the chairs in his apartment and pre tend we were driving. Usually we had an accident. Roll-Biz You like us for our cookies. You’ll love us for our cinnamon rolls. 4 474-6158 iri m^ 120 N. 14th i I \ / Evils of drink, dangers or Carrie s ax By Micki Haller Carrie Nation was a bleeding-heart liberal. \ Today we know what alcohol ban do to the body. It inexorably rots thp liver and mercilessly kills hundredsof brain cells, just for a short-lived buzz. Like the Holocaust, alcohol murders vital, living and necessary parts; the saddest thing is that it’s self-inflicted. A drug for hypocrites, alcohol is used by people too weak to face reality or stand the censure of their peers. Drinkers make up the soft, flabby beer belly of America; and that gut is John Bruce Daily Nebraskan -1 preponderant. But society sits in a stupor, maybe pickled to the gills from thousands of shredded, the enticement of alcohol becomes less seductive. This prepares the way for the second step. Stop the production of all alcohol, homemade or otherwise. Stiff fines, such as dismemberment, would be recommended. Possession of any alcohol should . be punishable by death. After all, | alcohol is a slow, painful death; this ' * • III! inner. These steps arc im Ic right now, but every good ten can do their part. Nancy Teagan ’s three little words can work wonders: “Just Say No." -~ '—- ~ 1 START YOUR MORNING RIGH With Breakfast In The (©REUNION 16th & W Streets/On City Campus f ” ” ” “* “ “ ” "coupoN| ! I HAMBURGER I | j PATTY’S I i i 1/2 OFF i l l l Biscuits & Gravy, I | Biscuit Sandwiches, j I Bagels ! I Or French Toast Sticks. | I From 7:00 am-11:00 am | I I ^ Expires 4-25-88 J “coupon! 1/2 OFF ! Ail I Cinnamon Rolls jj And Muffins CINNAMON j SAM'S : BETTER THAN HOMEMADE1 1 Baked Fresh Hourly! | Serving From 7:00 am -11:00 am | Expires 4-22-88 S CAREER OPPORTUNITIES with Bankers Life Nebraska May or August graduates in business, finance, account ing or pre law. Consider a future in financial or investment sales. 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