Drunken Song: Difference between revisions

Replaced redirects
(rm comment)
(Replaced redirects)
 
(11 intermediate revisions by 5 users not shown)
Line 1:
{{trope}}
{{quote|Some songs are never sung sober. On Earth ''Nellie Dean'' is one such. On [[Discworld]] the favourite is ''A Wizard's Staff Has a Knob on the End''.|'''[[Terry Pratchett]]'''}}
|'''[[Terry Pratchett]]'''}}
 
A simple way to indicate that a person is drunk is to have them sing a drunken song. It may be [[Bawdy Song|bawdy]] or [[Tear Jerker|weepily sentimental]], but it indicates inebriation even before you notice the slurred phrasing and lurching walk.
Line 6 ⟶ 7:
This was such a recurring trope in old British comedies that anyone who was drunk sang ''[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KyKglXOymmc Nellie Dean]'' and anyone singing ''Nellie Dean'' was drunk. It was useful cultural shorthand in the days before you could show a grown man pissing or puking in public.
 
See [[Ode to Intoxication]] for songs about getting drunk. Unrelated to [[Wasted Song]].
{{examples}}
 
{{examples}}
== Comics ==
== [[Comic Books]] ==
* In an old ''[[Punch]]'' cartoon, the natives of a pacific Island hear the strains of ''Nellie Dean'' echoing from the crater of the local volcano and comment, "The gods are drunk again".
* Constantine from ''[[Hellblazer (Comic Book)|Hellblazer]]'' tends to sing the bawdy kind when pissed out of his mind.
* Haddock and the [[Tintin (Comic Book)]] start singing a Belgian song after they get drunk off wine-fumes in ''The Crab with the Golden Claws''.
 
== [[Fan FictionWorks]] ==
* ''[https://web.archive.org/web/20150102081627/http://www.rangerboard.com/showthread.php?t=33965 Rangers of the Caribbean]'' does this with the ''[[SpongebobSpongeBob SquarePants]]'' theme.
 
== [[Film]] ==
* In ''[[Jaws (Filmfilm)|Jaws]]'' the sailors bond over booze and "Show Me The Way To Go Home".
* [[Hellboy (Filmfilm)|Hellboy]] and Abe get drunk and sing Barry Manilow's "Can't Smile Without You" in ''Hellboy II: The Golden Army''.
* In ''[[Pinocchio]]'' Foulfellow sings a drunken version of "An Actor's Life For Me."
* ''[[Dumbo (Disney)|Dumbo]]''{{'}}s "We're Gonna Hit the Big Boss For a Raise."
* ''[[Pirates of the Caribbean]]'' -- "A Pirate's Life For Me"
** ...and really bad eggs!
* Gaston's [[Villain Song]] from ''[[Beauty and Thethe Beast (1991 film)|Beauty and the Beast]]'' has elements of this.
* Many Ealing comedies and similar, for example in ''The Bargee'', Harry H Corbett is able to get out of his girlfriend's bed before her large, violent father gets home from the pub because he's singing ''Nellie Dean'' loudly.
* In ''[[Euro TripEurotrip]]'', the American protagonists accidentally stumble into a private bar for [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UyIrXH-ITw4 burly, belligerent Manchester United fans.] After narrowly avoiding getting their asses kicked by singing an altered version of "My Baby Takes the Morning Train" ([[It Makes Sense in Context]]), the liquor starts flowing and the thugs join them in a rendition.
* In ''[[The Great Mouse Detective]]'', where one mouse calls another mouse a "rat" during a song.
* In ''[[Animal House]]'' Delta Tau Chi sings "Louie Louie" completely unintelligibly.
 
== [[Literature]] ==
Line 34 ⟶ 35:
** The full title of "the hedgehog song" is ''The Hedgehog Can Never Be Buggered At All''. That should give you an idea ''[[But You Screw One Goat!|why]]'' it is never sung while sober.
* Male characters in the ''[[Belgariad]]'' '''never''' sing while sober. We're never told what exactly they're singing, but it tends to scare off any birds in the vicinity.
* Hagrid and Professor Slughorn in ''[[Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (Franchisenovel)/|Harry Potter and Thethe Half -Blood Prince|Harry Potter]]'' after Aragog died. Also in the film of the same name.
* One ''[[Doctor Who]]'' [[Eighth Doctor Adventures]] novel has Fitz waking up on a bench, trying to reconstruct what he did last night:
{{quote| The last thing he remembered was joining in a singsong with a group of drunken tourists at Il-Eruk’s Tavern. He’d sung the song about the turnip fish.}}
* In ''[[Gone Withwith the Wind]]'', when Gerald O'Hara is drunk, he sings a song called "Peg in a Low-Backed Car".
 
== [[Live -Action TV]] ==
* Happens several times in ''[[Star Trek: Deep Space Nine]]'', e.g. Miles O'Brien and Julian Bashir singing "Jerusalem", or Worf singing Yet Another Klingon Battle Song with Miles or some grizzled Klingon veteran he's trying to cozy up to.
** All the Klingon songs are either opera or this. Both types are spectacularly [[Blood Knight|gory]].
*** A TNG episode had Picard and his older brother get drunk and sing after they have a big fist fight.
* "[[Black AdderBlackadder|See the little goblin, see his little feet...]]" Also, "Merlin the Happy Pig".
** Both of which are probably also [[Bawdy Song|Bawdy Songs]]s.
* In ''[[Lost (TV)|Lost]]'', after Desmond drinks some bottles of (expensive) wine, he starts singing "The Celtic Song".
* "I'll Take You Home Again, Kathleen," the song RyleyRyiley sings (badly) over the intercom in ''[[Star Trek: the Original Series (TV)|Star Trek theThe Original Series]]: TOS'' during "The Naked Time."
* A game is made out of this on ''[[Whose Line Is It Anyway? (TV)|Whose Line Is It Anyway]]'', The Irish Drinking song, natch.
* In ''[[Babylon 5]]'', Garabaldi sings "Show Me The Way To Go Home" on one occasion when drunk.
* The crew of ''[[Red Dwarf (TV)|Red Dwarf]]'' (minus Kryten), having been celebrating Rimmer's deathday, return to the ship singing "Show Me the Way to Go Home" while tracing three-dimensional esses in space. Later in the same episode, Rimmer sings "Someone to Watch Over Me" in a very plaintive manner. He then degenerates into high-pitched, tuneless humming.
* One episode of ''[[Black Books]]'' has Bernard visit some friends and singing a very [[Stylistic Suck|Irish]] drinking song to their young son. The [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=14iipXu5wA0 outtakes] reveal that not only did Dylan Moran improvise it, he improvised a whole bunch of them.
 
== [[Music]] ==
* "Fuck you I'm Drunk" by [[Bondo]]<ref>[[Misattributed Song|Bondo is ''not'']] [[Flogging Molly]]</ref>
* Brutally, heartbreakingly subverted by Richard Thompson's [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-noSz2XsIY "God Loves A Drunk."]
* Pretty much anything by The Pogues, but most particularly "A Pair of Brown Eyes".
** "The Wild Rover" is an older song performed by the Pogues among many others. Interestingly it started as a Temperance song.
*** Their celtic-rock brethern in general fall in this trope, particularly Dropkick Murphy's "Shipping Up to Boston" and [[Flogging Molly|Flogging Molly's]]'s "Drunken Lullabies."
**** The Dropkick Murphys also have the aptly titled "Kiss me, I'm Shitfaced"
** If you want more folk, "The Ramblin' Rover" by Silly Wizard probably should never be sung sober.
** The band [https://web.archive.org/web/20100529034845/http://gaelicstorm.musiccitynetworks.com/ Gaelic Storm] is taking the drinking song tradition to a new generation.
* "Forty-Seven Ginger-Headed Sailors".
* [[Tom Waits]]' ''"The Piano Has Been Drinking (Not Me)''" is a tragicomic take on the drunken song. The pianist denies his own inebriation, anthropomorphizing various objects to pin the blame on. "The carpet needs a haircut..."
* The Irish folk song "Seven Drunken Nights", most famously performed by the Dubliners. Gets very [[Bawdy Song|bawdy]] at the end...
* Done in [https://web.archive.org/web/20130514111845/http://www.songstowearpantsto.com/songs/andrew-vs-the-wilderness/ this] [[Songs to Wear Pants To]] song where the instructions were to "[Not] sing the lyrics. Shout them out in a drunken sort of way."
* The [[Dead Kennedys]] "Too Drunk To Fuck". [[Nouvelle Vague]]'s cover took this to the next level: the lead singer actually sounded like she was hammered when they recorded it.
* [[Damien Rice]]'s "Cheers, Darlin'" is a perfect example of this trope. Rice often makes a show of drinking while performing this song live.
* [[Hideto Matsumoto|hide]]'s solo song "Drink or Die." Also taken to the next level in that he was likely drunk most of the time he performed it, and sort of a [[Funny Aneurysm Moment]] in that alcohol would later be a part of why he did actually die.
* "[[Something Blues|Roadhouse Blues]]" by [[The Doors]]. In true blues fashion, Jim Morrison was totally smashed when he recorded it.
** "Five to One" might also count, if only because Morrison was plastered when he sang/shouted that, too.
*** When was Morrison not plastered?
* During the intro track for [[Running Wild (Musicband)|Running Wild]]'s "Port Royal", one can hear some drunk singing "Under Jolly Roger" from the band's last album.
* "[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XAU4B4Fmhkg Cold Gin]" by [[Kiss]].
* A lot of [[Steely Dan]] songs mention some kind of alcoholic beverage, or sound like they're either from the point of view of a morose drunk or about the results of a bender.
* [[Bob Dylan]] has a few, although the most obvious is "Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues": it has a kind of drunken vibe from the very beginning, but the final verse confirms it:
{{quote| I started out on burgundy <br />
But soon hit the harder stuff <br />
Everybody said they'd stand behind me <br />
When the game got rough <br />
But the joke was on me <br />
There was nobody even there to bluff <br />
I'm going back to New York City <br />
I do believe I've had enough. }}
 
== [[Recorded and Stand Up Comedy]] ==
* [[Robin Williams]] improvised one of these. "Oh... that night you said my wife was fat, I knocked ya down, and shit in yer hat..."
 
Line 94 ⟶ 96:
* "The Same Old Music" from ''Vanities''.
* "If I Were a Bell" from ''[[Guys and Dolls]]''.
* "Hot Lover" from the musical version of ''[[Two Gentlemen of Verona (Theatre)|Two Gentlemen of Verona]]''.
* "Let's Toast" from the musical version of ''[[The Prince and Thethe Pauper]]''.
* "Oom-Pah-Pah" from ''[[Oliver! (Theatre)|Oliver]]'': "There's a little ditty they're singing in the city, espec'lly when they've been on the gin or the beer..."
 
== [[Video Games]] ==
Line 103 ⟶ 105:
 
== [[Web Original]] ==
* In ''[[ThaliasThalia's Musings]]'', Thalia's sisters Terpsichore and Euterpe compose one of these during a [[Wild Teen Party]]. Any rhythmic resemblance to [[KeshaKe$ha|contemporary drinking songs]] is entirely coincidental.
{{quote| "All the mortals lining up 'cause they wanting to snag us,<br />
But we throw them to the wolves unless they look like Priapus." [http://thaliasmusingsnovels.wordpress.com/2011/05/20/playwright-laureate/\] }}
 
Line 114 ⟶ 116:
{{reflist}}
[[Category:Bollywood Tropes]]
[[Category:Hard -Drinking Tropes]]
[[Category:Music Tropes]]
[[Category:Drunken Song]]