No St. Patrick's Day would be complete without some good, old-fashioned dancing. When alcohol and good company combine, someone will be doing a jig and waving a glass before morning. Whether caught up in the wonderful energy of a classic Irish drinking song or another track that simply sings the praises of everyone's favorite intoxicant, something about the holiday particularly demands good music. The Daily Cardinal offers up some suggested listening for your drunken St. Patrick's Day debauchery.
'Fairytale of New York' by The Pogues
As one of my cousins once put it so aptly, \If you listen to the Pogues, you probably have a drinking problem.""
""Fairytale of New York"" has everything anyone could want in a drinking song: rhymes about drunk tanks, the NYPD and Frank Sinatra-a lead singer who sounds like he's never even considered checking into rehab-and a Celtic backing band. Shane Macgowen and Kirsty MacColl's back-and-forth tale of love, hate, alcohol and heroin in NYC pubwaltzes from ugly to pretty to something that's not quite either, all the while reeking of whisky.
Of course, it's Saint Patrick's Day, so you'll just have to ignore all the references to Christmas, but by the time you've gotten drunk enough for the Pogues you're probably not going to care anyway. This could quite possibly be the most Irish song this side of ""Danny Boy,"" except that you won't hear lines like ""You're a bum / You're a punk / You're an old slut on junk"" in most Irish traditionals. So order another round, take a pull or just writhe around vomiting in the back of a cab. Just make sure you're wearing something green.
-Matt Hunziker
'Drink Drink Drink' by Mario Lanza
Right now, you're wondering just who this ""Mario Lanza"" guy is, and why you've never heard the greatest drinking song in the world.
More than likely, you have. ""Drink Drink Drink,"" best known as ""That Aquafina Commercial Song I Can't Get Out Of My Damn Head,"" is one of those rousing songs that absolutely demand everyone join in. Bare minimum, drinkers are required to sing the title line sloppily off-key over and over, awkwardly pausing to realize the only line of the song you actually know is ""Drink Drink Drink.""
But that's okay. The song's stuck in your head anyway. It's like a damn virus. So instead of denying your impulses, grab your friends' arms, lean left and right and start a boisterous round of the Aquafina song.
-William Temby
'Keasbey Nights' by Catch 22
While all of the songs on the New Jersey ska band's 1998 album Keasbey Nights are certainly good when putting down a drink or two, the album's title track is probably the one most suited to a night out with the boys. The song has all of the elements essential to making a good drinking song: upbeat melody, foot-tapping drumming and most importantly, gang vocals.
""Keasbey Nights"" chorus basically consists of every member of the band crowding around the microphone, each trying to let their voices be most prominent. This, of course, makes for a terrific hook to which everyone can sing along.
The song's defining moment, however, comes toward the end, where all of the instruments drop out and all the listener is left with is the aforementioned gang chorus. Imagine a night at a pub with your closest friends where everyone raises their mugs simultaneously to sing along:
""When they come for me, I'll be sitting in my desk / with a gun in my hand wearing a bulletproof vest / singing 'my my my how the time does fly / when you know you're gonna die by the end of the night.'""
Perfect.
-Eric Reinert
Astral Weeks by Van Morrison
First off, you don't need to explain how it happened. A lot of things can happen that would explain a cool dude like you being drunk and alone in his dorm room on St. Patrick's Day.
Your ""Kiss Me, I'm Irish"" shirt and that box of Lucky Charms on your desk must mean you're trying to honor your Irish heritage. So you want to honor your Irish heritage, yet somehow make being alone and drunk in a dark dorm room seem cool? Well, Van Morrison's Astral Weeks is the answer to your problem.
It's not quite rock, not quite pop, just a mixture of folk, jazz and Celtic music. Astral Weeks is soft, delicate and oh-so-sad. And the way Van keeps repeating lines over and over, teasing the meaning out of them? He's not singing lyrics, my friend-he's reciting poetry. If someone comes to your door, they won't think you got ditched on the best day of the year to get wasted. They'll think you're too intelligent for that crowd: You are a brooding, melancholy, sensitive intellectual.
Plus, Van is a genuine Irishman. Half the lyrics on this album are about growing up in Belfast, and the cover even has some of the color green on it. If anyone asks, say that listening to-no, meditating upon-this album is your way of honoring the sacrifice of your ancestors.
-Joe Lynch
'I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles)' by The Proclaimers
Nobody remembers the 1988 release of The Proclaimers' album Sunshine on Leith. But practically everyone knows the first track ""I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles),"" an ideal song for an Irish holiday. From the first verse, which has Charlie and Craig Reid singing about getting drunk, it's no question that this song needs to be on everyone's lips for St. Patrick's Day. Besides, how else but in an alcohol-induced moment of epiphany could anyone understand what havering is?
The song is repetitive to the point of obnoxiousness and is all the better for it. The verses don't say much other than ""gonna be"" and either ""to you"" or ""with you."" Because it is better kept simple and best when screamed with a pint of ale in one (or both) hands, ""I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles)"" is a fine intoxication tune.
The song is best when one gets to the filler, which is just syllables, really. On top of all that, everyone can share in the happy shouting match singing it in a call-and-response style. What could possibly be better than a crowd of drunk students making a racket back and forth with ""Da-da-da-dun-diddle-un-diddle-un-diddle-uh-da-da?""
-Ben Schultz
'Hills of Connemara' and 'Johnny Tarr' by Gaelic Storm
The best Irish energy-like the best drinks and drinkers-come straight from Ireland, and no band channels this spirit better than Gaelic Storm-also known as the steerage band from the film ""Titanic.""
A great example of their high energy is ""Hills of Connemara,"" a traditional Irish jig filled with fiddles, guitar and harmonica. The chorus rolls along and gets faster with each line, urging the bootleggers of Ireland to ""Gather up the pots and the old tin cans / The mash, the corn, the barley and the bran / Run like the devil from the excise man"" and carry their wares to everyone who needs them.
The band's mellower side comes through in their originals, such as the whimsical ""Johnny Tarr,"" an anthem to an alcoholic who died of thirst. Verses like ""I wouldn't trust a person like me if I were you"" over a fiddle line prove Gaelic Storm has a sense of humor and make listeners feel like the band just wants to kick back with a pint.
Gaelic Storm is the kind of music best played with a pint of beer or glass of whisky in hand, when you're prepared to clap your hands and move your feet.
-Les Chappell
'Come Pick Me Up' by Ryan Adams
Alternative-rock crooner Ryan Adams once had a CD rejected for being ""too depressing,"" so it makes perfect sense for him to write excellent drinking songs. One of his most notable songs that drives people to drink comes from the aptly titled Heartbreaker.
In ""Come Pick Me Up,"" Adams lets out the memorable refrain ""I wish you would / Come pick me up / Take me out / Fuck me up / Steal my records / Screw all my friends / Behind my back / With a smile on your face / And then do it again.""
Adams asks a girlfriend who did him wrong to continue mistreating him, just so he can feel alive. Adams' mournful lyrics, combined with a searing blues harp, make ""Come Pick Me Up"" an ultimately depressing endeavor, but one in which it is easy to contemplate life while slamming back shot after shot.
-Kevin Nelson
'Stray Cat Strut' by Stray Cats
The song is mellow enough to be in the background but has the potential for drunken sing-alongs nonetheless.
What makes the song great for a night out, however, is that it is perfect for any setting. It can be one of several songs you remember from a laid-back night at a gin joint, or the ideal song to get people off their stools and out on the dance floor.
Off of the rockabilly revival band's 1981 self-titled album, ""Stray Cat Strut"" has the head-nodding sort of sound perfect for cradling a scotch and a cigarette, combining a simple-but-catchy bass line with guitarist and lead singer Brian Setzer's smooth vocals and blazing guitar licks.
""Stray Cat Strut"" is one of those songs that makes a person feel that much cooler after listening to it.
""Love is Like a Bottle of Gin"" by The Magnetic Fields
Drinking and love seem to be nearly inseparable-or perhaps that's drinking and street crime, it's hard to keep track. In any case, Stephen Merritt definitely pushes for the former of the two with this song, one of the simplest but most irresistible odes to both spirited drink and romance ever to grace the compact disc.
Not properly suited for your average kegger perhaps, as you won't find a bit of percussion here, but Merritt's croon and the impossibly warm guitar tones are perfect for a more intimate gathering of shit-faced individuals.
Never one to neglect taking on a subject from all angles, Merritt makes sure to cover both the pros and cons (""It costs a lot more than it's worth / And yet there is no substitute""), but you'll come away from this one sorely wanting either several drinks or to romantically proposition the person immediately to your right.
On ""Love is Like a Bottle of Gin"" not only do the Magnetic Fields simultaneously make more astute observations about both love and gin than any one else has since been able to manage, they do it all in less than two minutes, leaving you ample time to black out and hit on your shift supervisor.
-Matt Hunziker
