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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."
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