123 Drink Song
Eberardo Topher
I tried to put it all behind me, the treatment stays, the halfway houses, all those meeting and big blue books....but I was a mess, and I got way worse as I went deeper into relapse. It got very, very dark, and I am simply lucky to have survived those years. In all fairness, I should be dead.
Funny thing, this songwriting journey. Looking back through my song catalogue, my songs sing like an autobiography, or a memoir. My guess is that many songwriters could say that, that their songs are their story; no real need for an actual memoir.
As I wrote this song, I tried to imagine myself still active in my own addiction, slowly growing old and sinking in an illness that was killing me. I imagined staying blind, asleep, unaware of the nature of the illness, and unable to see my own hand in creating the problem. Essentially, the song is about who I would have been had I not gotten sober. As I wrote, I turned myself into a guy alone in a room in a cheap apartment in Central Square, in Cambridge, MA. (I knew a guy like that, a wonderful country singer and songwriter, who died of alcoholism in just this horrifying, predictable, boring and sad way). I let myself become him, and the song came out of my imagination and experience.
When Busta performed this song with Pharrell Williams at the 2014 NBA All Star game, they changed the liquor shoutout to Ciroc vodka. Diddy (who is also on the track) owns the lux spirit. But back in the day when this cut first dropped, they were all hoping a glass (or bottle for that matter) of the choice cognac would come their way. Listen here.
Penned by Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill for the incendiary 1930 opera Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny, this song was originally performed by a chorus of prostitutes. This more famous cover was recorded by the Doors in 1966 with a carnivalesque sound that perfectly illustrates what it's like to be smashed and along for the ride (which Jim Morrison very likely was).
We hate this song as much as you do. Of course we do. But the entire belly-shot community would beg to differ. And answer us this: Has any piece of music better simulated the jackhammering headache of a Russian-grade hangover?
Gee, this stein-swinging sing-along from 1975 makes drunks seem quaint and adorable. Like commercials with horses falling in love with puppies. Not like raging douchebags who get into fights about football and fall in the street.
The Big Lebowski may have cornered the market on White Russian references in pop culture, but this (rhythmically) chugging delight from bluesy Brits Dr. Feelgood gives dairy its sonic due. Written by Nick Lowe (after a night spent drinking Kahla and watching John Lee Hooker perform), its seedy stomp and heavy riffing positively ooze the illicit joys of a night on the town. Warning: may not be suitable for the lactose intolerant.
Nashville singer-songwriter Gabe Lee spent his college days studying literature, but he spent his nights surveying the people he served while bartending and waiting tables, listening to their stories and learning to tell his own.
On one level, the title track of Morgan Evans' debut album, Things That We Drink To, is a meditation on the artist's relationship with Rob Potts, the veteran Australian country music promoter who championed Evans as a young musician. Potts died unexpectedly in October of 2017, after being involved in a motorcycle accident along the west coast of Tasmania.
However, Evans says that when he began to play the song live, he noticed that "Things That We Drink To" was taking on a life beyond the scope of his own personal story, and connecting with fans on a deep level. Read on to learn the story behind "Things That We Drink To," as well as why Evans chose the song as album's title track.
For me, it's a tribute song to Rob [Potts], absolutely. He was my manager for 10 years. He discovered me in Australia. He got me my first record deal. He brought me to America for the first time, and then he kept telling me to come back to America when I thought it was too hard. He died in a motorcycle accident last year, really suddenly, obviously, and [I wrote this song] on the day of his memorial service in Nashville.
I was in the studio that day, and I guess I could've just said I didn't want to write that day or whatever. But we were all in the studio. Chris [DeStefano] started playing a beat, and I started singing that melody, and the words "things that we drink to" came out of my mouth. You know, when you lose someone, there's different ways you can sing about it, but what a great way to sing about it: as a celebration of life, and everything they did, and everything you got to do with them. We wrote it from that perspective.
I've only played that song live a handful of times, maybe seven or eight times now, but every time I do, after the show, someone will come up to me with tears in their eyes and tell me about someone they lost that the song made them miss. You can talk to people on a whole new level with music, and that song's a very special one to me, specifically, but it can also do that for other people as well.
As the track list came together for this record, I noticed that all these songs were about moments you could raise a glass to, whether it's buying a new home or meeting a girl or getting married or remembering someone you loved. I think "Things That We Drink To" really represents all those moments that I'm singing about on the album, and that's how it wound up being the album title.
We got most the song that first night. Added a few things the next morning and then I believe I sent a few email suggestions to Eric a week or so later. We finished a half dozen songs and started just as many others that week, so some of them run together.
"Drinking Song" or "Drink, Drink, Drink" is an exuberant song composed by Sigmund Romberg with lyrics by Dorothy Donnelly. It is the most popular piece in the 1924 operetta, The Student Prince.[1] It was a success for tenor Mario Lanza, who recorded it for the 1954 movie and was released on vinyl that same year. Lanza was originally scheduled to play the lead role, but during production Lanza and the studio parted ways.[2] Edmund Purdom was brought in as a replacement however Purdom lip-synced over Lanza's recordings during the musical performances in the film.
Rich Stewart who goes by the stage name Homebrew Stew placed this song at the number three position for both his list of The Top 86 Drinking Songs[3] in Modern Drunkard and book featuring an expanded rundown of 151 songs about drinking.[4]
For those unfamiliar with it, it is an Edgar Allen Poe poem wherein the main character kills a fellow noble for insulting him by getting him drunk and essentially burying him alive in his wine cellar.
The pinata seems to be a metaphor for missed opportunities. Thelistener has all the tools, but won't break the pinata open and takethe sweet, sweet candy. The narrator is tired of trying to help thelistener and being met with indifference. Our narrator is throwing hishands in the air and saying "I give up".
Usually songs of this style ("drinking songs") are celebratory of aperson or event, but here this been turned around, mourning a failedlife that no one but the narrator ever expected to be a success. Thelistener is "buried alive" in the way that he has already lost beforeeven finishing the race, with the consequences of past failures piledup on top of him.
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