Beer Music – Funny Stuff

It’s a funny thing – hence the title for this piece – but when I’m sitting with my thoughts and a beer or two I sometimes recall things from many years gone by and these beer songs are a good example. Beer songs made up using the tune of a song of the day and clever lyrics is an Australian pastime. And there are some which are more developed than the classics like ‘More beer, more beer, more beer, more beer.’ Here are a couple of my own – and some partly ripped off – originals.

I remember that I heard someone use the ‘catch line’ from this first song in a bar I was running about ten years back and I went home and wrote the verses to complete the song. On a deep level it tells the ancient tale of the power that beer holds over us and the respect with which it must be held lest its abuse and disrespect lead us astray and into temptation. On a more shallow level, it tells the modern tale of how chicks who are stinkers sober, get progressively more attractive as the beers flow. Or overflow.

The tune is The Knack’s ‘My Sharona’.
And so I don’t give away the ‘tag’ I have run the three verses together then the chorus, whereas the real song has two verses, the chorus and then another verse. Pedantic, I know, but I don’t want complaints that I have butchered a perfectly good song.

Verse 1

‘Oooh, you’re not a pretty one, an ugly one
I wouldn’t even give you the – TIME SHARONA!
You don’t make my motor run, you’re a bum
I think I’d rather bath in some – LIME SHARONA!’*

Verse 2

‘Keep a little distance please, away from me
The ‘Ugly Cops’ should give you a – FINE SHARONA!
But is it just my destiny, to be a sleaze
And will I have to give you a – TRY SHARONA!’

Verse 3

‘I have only had four beers, just four beers
I’m gonna have to get me a – FIVE SHARONA!
Then another two, just for you
You are really startin’ to look – FINE SHARONA!’

Maybe one more drink, then I think That not so much will you stink
Can a beer, bring me cheer And the courage to come near,
She -started -looking -good after – NINE CORONAS!!

And we’ve all been there, haven’t we? Except for me, I don’t drink Corona. The next ditty is to the tune of The Proclaimers big debut hit, 500 Miles. I first saw the brilliant Scottish comedian Craig Ferguson (aka Bing Hitler) perform the chorus bit on telly somewhere. I tried to find the full version but You Tube had pulled it for some reason. I think, from memory, that the song was just a ‘snippet’, in that it was only a line or two, so I have taken the liberty of writing the verses.

It is translated from the traditional Scottish.

500 Miles

‘When I go out, well I know I’m gonna be,
I’m gonna be the man who’s gooin’oot wi’ you
With some lagers, well we’re gonna need a few
If I’m gonna be the one who goos wi’ you’

When I’m drinkin’, well I know I’m gonna be,
I’m gonna be the man who’s singin’ loudly, too
And when I get drunk, well I know I’m gonna spew
And I just hope that it don’t get on my shoe

(Chorus)
And I have had five hundred beers and I will have five hundred more
And then I’ll be the man who comes to your party and does sick on your floor
Bleugh – da – do –do!
Bleugh – da – do –do!
Bleugh – da – dun- da- la- dun
Dud a lun dud a lun dah dah!

(Drink more beer and repeat chorus)

Hope you found these tunes amusing and get a chance to try them out loudly one night during the following months. If I remember any more or get the inkling to write some more, you’ll know where to find them.

Cheers,
Prof. Pilsner

*I cleaned this line up in case the kids are reading. It used to say; ‘I’d rather stick my d@#k in some lime, Sharona.

Ticket in Tatts

‘We walk along the seafront – from Woolloomooloo to Bennelong
We walk along in the sunshine – our feet were hurting
We walked for so long
I told you that I loved you – I told you once or twice
We had a cold beer in a seaside pub – and didn’t that beer taste nice’


So runs the first verse of a neat little tune from the Professors’ favourite’s collection by the now disbanded Melbourne outfit Weddings, Parties Anything. It was running through my head as I did in fact walk along the seafront – although it was the Esplanade at Cowes on Victoria’s beautiful Phillip Island - and it stopped me in my tracks to think that such a serendipitous coincidence could occur so unexpectedly. Sorry to use the word ‘serendipitous’ in a beer blog. In future I will attempt to balance out these rare lapses with something more befitting our blog philosophy. Boobies. There you go.

The reason for the emergence of a big smile across my dial was not so much the nature of the intersection of thoughts and actions, nor was it the fine sunny day I was enjoying due to the
free-form antics of my two youngest Pilsners but it was the sudden realisation that a memory can intone such strong feelings without even being aware of it. I was smiling at the thought of a cold beer in a seaside pub and, yes, that beer did taste nice. This was made even more pleasurable by my realisation of the underlying theme of the song. As you will see from the chorus;

‘But now I’m ten cents short of a dollar –

but I feel like a man with a ticket in Tatts
We got, blue skies and window shopping and a back lane full of cats.’

Sometimes I reckon we get all caught up in the things in our lives that we think are the most pressing and important – and to an extent, they are – but we shouldn’t put them ahead of the things that really are important. We all need to work and earn the cash to keep a roof over the head and the wolf from the door but we also need to mix this up and temper it with a greater appreciation for the little things.

‘On Fridays we eat pasta – on Saturdays it’s fish
And for the rest of the week we get toasted cheese
That is our favourite dish
We live above the city – but our bed is on the floor
It’s Three flights up, Too far gone, One couldn’t ask for more’

‘But now I’m ten cents short of a dollar –

but I feel like a man with a ticket in Tatts
We got, blue skies and window shopping and a back lane full of cats.’


For me the little things are the joy of assembling all the gear as I ready myself to put on a homebrew, especially if it’s one we haven’t tried yet, the simple pleasure of spotting a new beer or, again, one I haven’t tried yet or even the first sip of nice, ice cold mainstream lager from the tap at a decent bar that doesn’t look like a futuristic stainless steel poofter coffee shop. Like I said, simple things.

My kids seem to have a pretty keen grasp of the concept of simple pleasures and perhaps that’s why I find it easy to see the good aspects of the any little thing. All the latest tricked out and techno-hyped toys are not worth the excessive plastic packaging they are bound up in when compared to the unhindered rapture of playing with Dad’s bottle capping machine or helping Dad to ‘top & tail’ the capped bottles to mix in the priming sugar. And don’t even get me started on the thrill of handing the bottles to Dad to put in to storage under the table! Fun in buckets, I tells ya!

The feeling you get when you bring a special beer back home to join its fridge friends, that waiting game you play while it chills, the unmistakable ‘tssst’ as you pop the cap and that delicious ‘glup, glup, glup’ as the glass fills. I don’t need to spell out the joy of that first taste, do I?

‘I don’t know why I come here – I don’t know if I’ll stay
But if the weather keeps up, and you keep smiling
They couldn’t drag me away (I tell you what ...)
I’ll meet you down at the Hotel – when our work is done
And we’ll play pool, til’ closing time – we’ll drink ten beers, if we have one’

‘But now I’m ten cents short of a dollar –

but I feel like a man with a ticket in Tatts
We got, blue skies and window shopping and a back lane full of cats.’

So next time you’re in the car and the phone rings, let it go through to voice mail, leave the extra paperwork ‘til later and go outside for a walk around the neighbourhood or leave work early one day and take the missus out for dinner. Go off now and enjoy some little things. Oh, by the way, I have found that the little things seem to go better with a nice beer.

Cheers,
Prof. Pilsner