Best songs about drinking

So many songs have been written about heartache, and even more about being addicted to the bottle, and even a handful where one led to the other. So I thought I'd offer a change of material and share some of my favorites this week.

Roadhouse Blues - The Doors

There's two eras of The Doors- The lizard King, which was pure 60's avant garde freak out, and Bearded Bard, which is 70's blues wrapped in cheap beer. And the beer doesn't get much cheaper (or blues encrusted) then Roadhouse Blues. Morrisons voice strains like he had just drank every Milwaukee's best in a 100 mile radius and you feel it in every bone in your body.

Brass Monkey- Beastie Boys

#RIPMCA

Let's get real though, no list about drinking is complete without some vintage Beastie boys. From those fat sax and bass hits, this song is like opening a window into underage drinking. Who doesn't remember the first Brass monkey they drank?

One Bourbon One Scotch One Beer - George Thorogood

This song is actually a little two for one action. The first half of it is a blues standard called "House-rent blues", a tale of woe about a guy who loses his job and pisses off his old lady. Of course the next logical progression is to end up at the bar. Interesting trivia about Thorogood, he's actually a Teetotaler who doesn't like to drink.

 Family Tradition - Hank Williams Jr.

Oh Junior, you are such a card. Yeah, you've kinda unveiled yourself to be an unrepentant piece of shit, but so is Ted Nugent and Stranglehold is still a good jam. I digress, I had to pick this because aside from being a true tale of the legend of the Williams family boozing (We're talking about the son of the guy who got so drunk they kicked him out of the grand ol opry), it's also deeply sentimental. My mom would often pplay this song in an attempt to explain our long standing history of dysfunction. So I guess in my own way, I too am just following those family traditions.

Where everyone knows your name - Gary Portnoy

Listen to those first few notes and tell me you don't feel your heartstrings being pulled. You know deep down inside we all just want to walk down to someplace where everyone knows your name, even if that place only exists in our hearts...

Plus it has young Woody Harrelson in it. 

NORM!

Theme from Cheers - Titus Andronicus

But let's get real, Cheers is just a show, and this alt-country alcoholism-fueled ballad probably a more accurate portrait of someone who's known by name at a bar. Only a concept album about the civil war could really paint the real pain of someone who has to drink just to get through the day.

"And the walk home is going to be a real shit show--
I'll be picking up half-smoked cigarette butts all up and down Rock Road
and then throw up in the warm glow of the traffic light.
But I'm gonna put the devil inside me to sleep if it takes all night."

Bartender (Nashville Version) - Rehab

Now I'm not one for Radio-edits, but c'mon, this is so good. A tale of white-trash woe, a regular trailer-park opera, fueled by a drunken outburst. It's like "What made Milwaukee famous" without any regrets.  Plus anyone has ever been at dive bar in the southeast, you've heard this song at least two dozen times. Might as well cop to the fact that we all love it.

Too drunk to Dream - Magnetic Fields

Many a beautiful song has been written about needing the bottle, and many a beautiful song has been penned about a broken heart, but nothing speaks more universally then mending a broken heart with the bottle.

"I gotta get too drunk to dream

'Cause dreaming only makes me blue

I gotta get too drunk to dream

Because I only dream of you"

And finally, saving the best for last, I give you...

Tik Tok - Ke$ha

Ok so i'm not  a proponent of Ke$ha, but this song does make me want to drink, so there is that. Plus this video pretty much always makes me happy. I have a weakness for drunk Shatner.