Why Don't We Get Drunk
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| “Why Don't We Get Drunk” | ||
|---|---|---|
| Song by Jimmy Buffett | ||
| Released | April 1973 | |
| Format | 7" | |
| Recorded | Glaser Sound, Nashville, Tennessee | |
| Genre | Country | |
| Length | 2:43 | |
| Label | Dunhill D-4348 (U.S., 7") |
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| Writer | Marvin Gardens[1] | |
| Producer | Don Gant | |
| Audio sample | ||
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"Why Don't We Get Drunk (and Screw)" is a novelty song written and performed by American popular music singer-songwriter Jimmy Buffett. It was a b-side to the first single ("The Great Filling Station Holdup") from his 1973 album A White Sport Coat and a Pink Crustacean. The song is a fan favorite and, up until the 2007 Bama Breeze tour, was almost always performed at Buffett's live concerts.
The song is a parody of standard country music love songs. Buffett states that he made the song "as a total satire [and] wasn't even going to put it on the album. We did it foolin' around in one take. But immediately that song became controversial, and there were jukebox sales."[2] Buffett further notes, "I was hearing a lot of very suggestive country songs-in particular, Conway Twitty's "Let's Go All the Way." I figured I would write a song that would leave no doubt in anybody's mind. I thought back to a late night in an Atlanta diner where I was eating and watching this out-of-focus businessman trying to pick up a hooker. That's all the inspiration I needed."[3]
He wrote the song under the pseudonym Marvin Gardens, derived from a property on the original Atlantic City version of the Monopoly game board, actually named Marven Gardens.
In the 1970s and 1980s, Buffett frequently sang the song in concert with one of the choruses replaced with "why don't we get stoned and screw." This can be heard on the 1978 live album release You Had to be There, where Buffett declares "I just bought some Columbian herb and we'll smoke it all, me and you."
During the Havaña Daydreamin' Tour in 1997/98 and Party At The End Of The World Tour in 2006/07, Buffett sang the lyrics as "why don't we get lunch in school", usually prefacing the song by acknowledging the fact that children are now attending his concerts alongside their adult parents and he wanted to make the song more family friendly. For the first time, after several years of criticism by fans of being overplayed and/or too obscene, the song was dropped from the opening-show in Texas and hasn't been played until -- on 24th April 2008, in 'the year of still here' concert in St. Louis, Mo, Buffet played this song.
[edit] Notes
- ^ Pseudonym of Jimmy Buffett
- ^ Bob Anderson. "Jimmy Buffett." High Times. December 1976. At CoBO.org.
- ^ Boats, Beaches, Bars & Ballads liner notes.
[edit] References
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