In Hear This, A.V. Club writers sing the praises of songs they know well—some inspired by a weekly theme and some not, but always songs worth hearing.
I recently bought a shirt advertising a friend’s honky-tonk DJ night. While clicking around the night’s Bandcamp page, I started listening to a 27-minute mix, “Houston Hangover” featuring some of the DJing duo’s favorite drinking tunes, all intercut with some vintage beer commercials and Houston-related soundbites. I’m not from Houston—my husband is—but I appreciate a good, sleazy beer jam as much as any native Texan. One of my favorites, Bobby Bare’s “Drunk And Crazy,” actually made my friend’s mix. A track from Bare’s 1980 record of the same name, “Drunk And Crazy” was written by Shel Silverstein, Bare’s longtime friend and collaborator, and features Bare doing a kind of ramblin’ CB-style patois that wouldn’t sound out of place on the soundtrack for Smokey And The Bandit. While the message of “Drunk And Crazy” isn’t exactly family-friendly with its talk of blackout excess, adultery, and wacked-out doctors swimming in booze and wielding scalpels, it’s fairly typical Silverstein, despite what books like Where The Sidewalk Ends might suggest. It’s darkly charming, sweetly macabre, and incredibly catchy. Bare’s intonations and back-up singers just add to the fun. Throw in the seemingly drunk monkeys and puppies in the YouTube clip some user made for the song, and it’s party time.