I don't drink: diabetes and family history are excellent dampers on impulse. There are times, though, when stress, nerves, hormones, whatever you want to call it, makes a body want to go on a bender.
So me, I pour myself a CF Diet Pepsi, crank up the Wurlitzer in my head, and go on a classic country drinkin' song binge. These are some of my favorites.
The most venerable of the lot dates all the way back to 1953. Although the most influential male artists to rise in the wake of Hank Williams's untimely death were undoubtedly Ray Price and George Jones, the man who scored the most number one hits in the fifties was Webb Pierce. This is the biggest of them all:
There Stands the Glass.
Next up, Hank Thompson's bouncy western swing hit,
One Sixpack to Go. It's irrepressible; you gotta love a guy who announces, "I don't have enough to pay my rent/I ain't gonna worry though/I got time for one more round and a six pack to go." I cannot verify the original release date, but I'm betting on the years between 1950-1956.
Okay, yes, you cannot have a jukebox full of drinkin' songs without at least one George Jones hit, ol' Possum being a notable consumer himself, and although there are a number of spectacularly self-pitying ones in his repertoire, I like this one:
White Lightnin'. Written by J.P. Richardson, aka The Big Bopper, this is a 1962 live recording of Possum's 1959 hit.
Next up, the only slow reflective song in the bunch I've chosen for tonight: Jim Reeves's 1963 recording
Bottle Take Effect. This was released on a 1963 album called GOOD 'N' COUNTRY on RCA's budget Camden label; I don't remember ever hearing it on the radio. The album, though, was in Dad's collection, so it's an early musical memory of mine.
One of my favorite writers of totally goofball songs is/was the late great Roger Miller. Although the bigger hit of this little number,
Chug a Lug was recorded by Eddy Arnold, I prefer Miller's own 1964 recording, that voice of limited range and croakiness that nonetheless does make a body want to join in and "holler hi dee ho."
(Pardon me a second; I'm signalling myself for another CF Diet Pepsi.)
If you were to pin me down and make me say what my absolute favorite drinkin' song of all time is, it would be this one: Jim Ed Brown's 1967 hit,
Pop a Top. Written by the late Nat Stuckey, it has, bar none, some of the best lyrics ever written by a country songwriter. Alan Jackson did a creditable cover of it in, I think, 1994, but Jim Ed's is the standard.
My favorite of the old fifties honky-tonkers was the brash, handsome, mouthy, awesomely talented Faron Young, who in 1969 recorded what is probably my second favorite drinkin' song,
Wine Me Up. Faron has been all but forgotten; he had his last chart record in 1982, and died a suicide in 1996. What a waste, because he could hold his own with anybody.
Charlie Daniels has been a favorite singer of mine since the 1970s. I don't share his conservative politics; as I do with Bocephus, I overlook them and enjoy the music. I LOVE this Cajun-flavored romp from 1985,
Drinkin' My Baby Goodbye. Fast, furious, raucous, fun. Period.
And last but far from least:
Dwight Yoakam is, like me, a teetotaler, but he can belt a drinkin' song with the best of 'em, as he did on
This Drinkin' Will Kill Me from his second album, HILLBILLY DELUXE (1987). It's not pure country; it's bluegrass on electric instruments, and dang, it's a good way to end this little shindig.
Another round?

And until next time, fair thee well.