Whiskey Before Breakfast

Words & Music:

Traditional Irish

Dang, I cannot find a recorded version of this with the lyrics! So, I am unsure of how the chords line up with the words. I've given a simple set of chords & tab. Jay Buckey has this on his site and Doug young has an instrumental arrangement of this in open D tuning in the May 2009 issue of Acoustic Guitar.

Early one day, the sun wouldn't shine.

I was walking down the street not feeling too fine.

I saw two old men with a bottle between 'em,

And this was the song that I heard them singing:

CHORUS: [sing 2x]

"Lord, preserve us and protect us,

We've been drinking whiskey 'fore breakfast."

Well, I stopped by the steps where they was sitting

And I couldn't believe how drunk they were getting.

I said, "Old men, have you been drinking long?"

They said, "Just long enough to be singing this song."

CHORUS:

Well, they passed me the bottle and I took a little sip,

And it felt so good I just couldn't quit.

I drank some more and next thing I knew,

There were three of us sitting there singing this tune:

CHORUS:

One by one, everybody in the town,

They heard our ruckus and they all came down.

And pretty soon all the streets were ringing

With the sound of the whole town laughing and singing:

CHORUS:

Folkguitar.us gives these chords:

Part A

D---|D---|G-D-|A---|D---|D---|G-D-|A-D-:||

Part B

D---|D---|A---|A---|D-A-|G-D-|G-D-|A-D-:||

Whiskey Before Breakfast Tab

Play with a Capo on the 3rd fret

Notes from the unknown tabber: "This is a fairly simple version of the bluegrass tune and is based on an old Norman Blake version but he never plays anything the same way twice anyway." This is in G, so you would have to transpose the folkguitar.us chords to play along.

Play part A twice and then Part B twice.

Part A

E-----------0----------------------------------------------|

B-----------1----------------------------------------------|

G---------0-0-0h2-0-------------2---2---0---0--------------|

D---0-2-3-----------2-0---0-2-3---3---2---2---------0h2-0--|

A-3---------------------3---------------------3/5-5-------2|

E----------------------------------------------------------|

E-------------0-----------------------------------------0-0|

B-------------1---------------------0-1-----------------1--|

G---------0-0-0-2-0-------------0-2-----2-0-------------0--|

D---0-2-3-----------2-0---0-2-3-------------3-2---0--------|

A-3---------------------3-----------------------3---2-3----|

E----------------------------------------------------------|

Part B

E---------0-1-3-0-1---0-------1-0-------------------3-----0|

B-----0-1-----------3---1-3-0-----1h3-0-------0-----0-1-3--|

G-0-2-----------------------------------2-0-2---2-0-0------|

D----------------------------------------------------------|

A----------------------------------------------------------|

E----------------------------------------------------------|

B-1-0-1-3-0---------------------0-1------------------------|

G-----------2-0---2-0-------0--2-----2-0-------------------|

D---------------3-----3-2-3-------------3-2---0------------|

A-------------------------------------------3---2-3--------|

E----------------------------------------------------------|