Beer lovers need look no further than popular music to find that beer is an integral part of our culture. For many, the indoctrination began at a very tender age. Who can’t remember warbling 99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall with a chorus of classmates on a school outing (much to the consternation of our chaperones) or with siblings in the back of the family station wagon on an interminably long family vacation?
Name that Beer Tune
If your parents and teachers were like most, you had probably just taken down and passed around the tenth bottle when it was politely –but firmly—suggested that it was time to move on to another less redundant and annoying activity.
While beer is rarely the focus of a song, it is common enough to merit a casual mention in much of today’s popular music. Paul Simon sang about meeting up with an old friend: “So we talked about the old times and we drank ourselves some beers…” in Still Crazy After All These Years. In a similar chance meeting with an old flame, Dan Fogelberg sang: “We went to have ourselves a drink or two but couldn’t find and open bar. We bought a six-pack at the liquor store and we drank it in her car” (Auld Lang Syne).
In Roll Me Away, Bob Seger sings about taking a break from his cross-country motorcycle ride: “Twelve hours out of Mackinaw City I stopped in a bar to have a brew…”, while another Bob (Dylan) sang about stopping in a different kind of bar in Tangled Up In Blue: “She was workin’ in a topless place when I stopped in for a beer.”
In singing: “You’ve been there and I’ve been here, and we ain’t had no time to drink that beer”, the group America admitted their bad timing as well as their bad grammar in Sandman. In Don Henley’s Sunset Grill, he complacently reflects: “Maybe we’ll leave come Spring time -meanwhile, have another beer.”
The one-hit wonder techno-pop band, Timbuk 3 even used beer as a measure of their brief success: “Fifty thou a year will buy a lot of beer” in My Future’s So Bright I Gotta Wear Shades.
The genre of country music is a little more up front with its treatment of beer inclusion in just about every my-wife-left-me-my-dog-died-and-my-pickup-truck-don’t-run song that is written. One of the most popular was sung by the immortal Hank Williams. There’s a Tear in My Beer (‘cause I’m cryin’ over you) was so good it was reprised by his son, Hank Williams Jr. many years later. In You Can Count on Beer, David Allan Coe reminds that: “you can count on beer every day of the year”.
Tom T. Hall proudly declares his love of the suds in I Like Beer, the closest thing there is to a national beer anthem. In this tune, Hall playfully explains why beer is his beverage of choice:
“I like beer… it makes me a jolly good fellow.
I like beer… it helps me unwind and sometimes it makes me feel mellow.
Whiskey’s too rough, Champagne costs too much, vodka puts my mouth in gear.
This little refrain should help to explain, as a matter of fact, I like beer!”
