A term that may apply regularly during Xmas party season, from the from the Latin crapula, in turn from the Greek kraipálē meaning "drunkenness" or "headache" pertains to sickness symptoms caused by excess in eating or drinking, or general intemperance and overindulgence. Hangovers are a familiar experience, not least by musicians, but how are they experienced in song?
There are many songs about hangovers, including Johnny Cash’s country Sunday Morning Coming Down, The Offspring’s ska/rock number The Worst Hangover Ever, Willie Nelson’s oddly jaunty Bloody Mary Morning, Modest Mouse’s acoustic album ending and drink and drugs-relatedThe Good Times Are Killing Me, and a rare number by Janis Joplin, the bluesy What Good Can Drinkin' Do in 1962, one thought to her first ever recorded song. Here they are in in all their gloriously melodious state of regret:
But what of songs that actually use the C-word - crapulence that is? We have to dig into lesser known musical terroritory, such as the noughties British indie-rock band The Escape, and their song that describing wittily how “the world just keeps on spinning”:
Here is a funk/jazz hip-hop swirl and slickly rapped hangover number by The Funky Vibe Collective (aka Maarten Antoon and Piet van der Burgt) from this year’s album Other English, with lines such as “never again, until again”, and “my tongue tastes like regret and C minor”:
Then even stranger territory, with the theatrical black metal of flamboyant Swedish rockers Ghost, with the song Mummy Dust and this wordy serving:
“Your cavalier of crapulence
To this feast of rapacity
I will bury you in treasures
Just to feed your incapacity”
Wordier still is rapper Illmef’s oddball experimental hip-hop track Illil from his 2019 Light A Fire album, where he evocatively describes a whole set of symptoms borne from substance abuse and alcohol dependence:
I miss a pill sitting on my sill
Can't stand: "Listen mister, sit still"
Thoughts fog except when I'm feeling this
Got my Rx-made laxed willingness
Fighting back clouds ambivalence
With a match and some mad flatulence
Followed crapulence and cannabis
Come to stretched in an ambulance
Ring bell, driver won't touch the door
Next stop, chill this pit's just the morgue
Your sordid skull's sorta mortuary
This sorta storm's more than sort of hairy
Every second's less and more ordinary
Fog, unrest, dope, and apothecaries
No rest allowed for the fairly wary
I's and L's spell an ill that's very scary
So then, any more crapulence-related examples, leaving you sore and regretful, but hopefully finding a cure, your own music library? Feel free also to share anything more in relation to it, whether in music or wider culture, such as from film, art, or other contexts, in comments below.
You can also get in touch the contact page, and also visit us on social media: Song Bar X, Song Bar Facebook. Song Bar YouTube. and Song Bar Instagram. Please subscribe, follow and share. New to comment? It is quick and easy. You just need to login to Disqus once. All is explained in About/FAQs ...
Song Bar is non-profit and is simply about sharing great music. We don’t do clickbait or advertisements. Please make any donation to help keep the Bar running: