“Take a Drink on Me”
Description
Chorus "Take a drink on me/All you rounders, take a drink on me...." Verses float: "What did you do with that gun in your hand You give it to a rounder and he shot a good man", "If you keep on stalling, you'll make me think... your daddy was a monkey..."
Long description
Floating verses, linked by chorus "Take a drink on me/All you rounders, take a drink on me/Oh, Lord, honey take a drink on me." Verses include "What did you do with that gun in your hand/You give it to a rounder and he shot a good man", "If you keep on stalling, you'll make me think/That your daddy was a monkey and your mama was an ape"; "You see that gal with a hobble on/She's good looking just as sure as you're born"
Notes
This is a problem in classification. On the one hand, it's clearly a version of "Take a Whiff on Me." On the other, none of the verses of the latter show up in this song. So I call them siblings but, since we're being splitters here, different songs.
[The version on page 28 of the Folksinger's Wordbook], although it uses the "whiff" chorus, consists entirely of floating verses -- none of them the same as the verses in the Cohen/Seeger/Wood version, but many shared with common fiddle tunes. - PJS
Same tune
- Take Your Leg Off Mine (listed by Rorrer, p. 77, as a bawdy version of the above)
Cross references
- cf. "Take a Whiff on Me" (tune, words)
- cf. "Coney Isle" (lyrics)
Recordings
- New Lost City Ramblers, "Take a Drink on Me" (on NLCR01)
- Charlie Poole and the North Carolina Ramblers, "Take a Drink on Me" (Columbia 15193-D, 1927; on CPoole01, CPoole05)
References
- Cohen/Seeger/Wood, pp. 156-157, "Take a Drink on Me" (1 text, 1 tune)
- Rorrer, p. 77, "Take a Drink on Me" (1 text)
- Darling-NAS, p. 289, "Take a Drink on Me" (1 text)
- Scarborough-NegroFS, p. 239, (no title) (1 fragment, in which the listener is urged to "take a one on me!"; it seems more likely that it's this than "take a whiff")
- Silber-FSWB, p. 28, "Take A Whiff On Me" (1 text); p. 235, "Take A Drink On Me" (2 texts)
- DT, DRNKONME*
- Roud #10062
- BI, CSW156