Ode to Intoxication

"Nicotine, valium, vicodin, marijuana, ecstasy, and alcohol!

C-c-c-c-cocaine!"

—"Feel Good Hit of the Summer", Queens of the Stone Age

The vocalist sings about how great it is to get drunk, high, or stoned - usually with biting sarcasm. (However, not all of them have to be sarcastic...)

When the tongue-in-cheek version is used well, it can double as a less Anvilicious way of saying Drugs Are Bad, becoming Type 1 of the Ode to Sobriety. Compare Drunken Song.

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Examples of Ode to Intoxication include:

• The Beer Medley by Darby O'Gill.
• "New Kind of Kick" by The Cramps ("Energine! Barcol! Draino hot shot! Whack attack! Helium! Nitrous oxide! Formaldehyde! Some new kind of kick!")
• "Streams Of Whiskey" by the Pogues. ("When the world is too dark and I need the light inside of me / I'll walk into a bar and drink fifteen pints of beer!")
• "Got to Get You Into My Life" by The Beatles is a totally sincere (and very subtle) song about Paul McCartney's love of marijuana.
• At first listen, the song "Stella" by the pop-punk band All Time Low appears to be a love song to a girl, but then you realize that Stella is actually a beer, Stella Artois...

I remember how you tasted
I've had you so many times, let's face it
Feels like I'm falling in love alone
Stella, won't you take me home?

• Skold vs. KMFDM's track, "Alkohol". The title indicates the subject matter.

The devil goes by many names
Ceremonious libation
Pure intoxication
Lets get basted, shit-faced, wasted

• Angelspit's "Elixir" is an interesting case. The general theme is that 'there's a drug for everything nowadays' but it also covers drug addiction - including the chorus, suggested as being from the 'point of view' of the addiction itself. There are a few interesting analyses on Songmeanings.net.
• "High Times" by Jamiroquai.

You're a rock star
And some tin foil with a glass pipe
Is your guitar

• "Drink or Die" by hide. Not sarcastic... sadly so if you look at what later happened. (change out the "or" for "and" and you have why he experienced Author Existence Failure.)
• Barenaked Ladies' "Alcohol".
• The infamous "Beer" song set to the 1812 Overture/Overture to Carmen..

Oh, what is that malted liquor,
what gets you drunker quicker,
what comes in bottles or in cans?
BEER!

• Green Day's "Hitchin' a Ride
• "Heroin" by the Velvet Underground. And let's not forget "White Light/White Heat", which at least one critic described as "a commercial jingle for speed".
  • Also a few songs from Lou Reed's solo career, with notable mention to "The Power Of Positive Drinking."
• "Because I Got High" by Afroman.
• "Beer!" by Psychostick
• "Tequila Makes Her Clothes Fall Off" - Joe Nichols
• "Alcohol" - Brad Paisley
• "Have a Drink on Me" by ACDC. It's not the least bit ironic; the boys love their sauce.
  • Some considered it in poor taste to include the song on their first album after Bon Scott died of alcohol poisoning, but their response was basically, "Not at all; Bon would have loved this song." (it could also be an homage to him, just like "Hells Bells" is a Grief Song)
• "Ten Rounds with Jose Cuervo" - Tracy Byrd
• George Thoroughgood and the Destroyers:
  • "I Drink Alone"
  • "One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer" (a cover)
  • Another George Thoroughgood example is "If You Don't Start Drinkin' (I'm Gonna Leave)".
• Smoke Buddah- Redman
• We Be Burning- Sean Paul
• Gin and Juice- Snoop Dogg
• The Polish heroicomical poem Monachomachia (literally "war of monks". It describes, in language better suited for describing epic ancient battles, a theological dispute degenerating into a giant brawl) contains a piece praising the "love of the glass" after a cup of wine is used to end the brawl by starting a binge. (as you can guess, the author, himself a priest, didn't think much of the morality in the monasteries of his time)
• Korpiklaani has a bunch of these, mostly without a hint of irony. "Vodka" is probably the most over-the-top.

Drinking is good for you!
Not anymore lonesome.
Drinking is good for you!
Oh you will feel awesome!

• • Don't forget Wooden Pints, Bring Us Pints of Beer, Happy Little Boozer, Tequila, Let's Drink, and Beer Beer. Korpiklaani *loves* doing songs like this.
• The Irish folk song, "Whiskey, you're the Devil".
  • Another example is "Seven Drunken Nights": a man comes home drunk each night and finds things that don't belong to him, and his wife calls him a drunken fool—can't he see it's not a horse/coat, it's a sow/blanket her mother sent her? The last two verses are rather explicit, so the Dubliners version cuts off at five nights.
  • "Water is alright in Tea" is another example which lists off the virtue of porter compared to water, wine and tea.
• Whiskey, Whiskey by Tri Yann is an example of a Breton ballad to the bottle.
• Alanis Morissette's "On the Tequila".
• Styx's "Light Up" and Boston's "Smokin'" aren't about tobacco.
• Dr. Hook has "I Got Stoned And I Missed It", although that might be more of a Drugs Are Bad example.
  • Which is a cover of a Shel Silverstein song.
• JJ Cale's "Cocaine". Best known for Eric Clapton's version.
• Dylan's "Rainy Day Women #12 & 35".
• The Finnish Olvir ä by Raptori uses the words of a bizarre poem by an 19th century Finnish author. Hearing "Hail, brown malted brew!" set in rap is one of the stranger moments in music.
• "Call The Understudy" in Slings and Arrows is an upbeat song about how the singer is too drunk to perform.
• Reel Big Fish does this... a lot, with varying levels of sarcasm. "Everybody's Drunk" and "Drinkin' come to mind.
• Bowling for Soup's "Hooray For Beer"
• My Little Needle, Cooking Wine, Blue in the Face, Take Lots With Alcohol, This Addiction...and many, many more by Alkaline Trio...
• A video game example - the first song that you can hear in the 2004 version of The Bard's Tale is 'Beer, Beer, Beer,' an ode to the man who created beer there. It's even sung by the town drunks, and you can sing along, too, if you like.
• Old Crow Medicine Show have at least three (it's a kind of Once An Album thing for them)
  • "Tell It To Me": From Old Crow Medicine Show. Cocaine. Also corn liquor, but mostly cocaine.
  • "Cocaine Habit": From Big Iron World. Kinda obvious isn't it? The corn liquor shows up, too.
  • "Methamphetamine": From Tennessee Pusher. Also kinda obvious.
• Gorillaz "White Light"
• Queens of the Stone Age have "Feel Good Hit of the Summer".

"Nicotine, Valium, Vicodin, Marijuana, Extasy, and Alcohol!"
"C-c-c-c-c-Cocaine!"

• If a Love Hate song isn't about Intercourse with You, it's probably the tongue-in-cheek version of this trope. "Fuel To Run" (about alcohol), "One More Round" (also about alcohol), Mary Jane (where the "joint" getting passed around might actually be a thirteen-year-old girl)...
• Carmina Burana (Orff) features a whole section, In Taverna, dedicated to drinking songs, including a song which lists all those to be found in the pub in question, plus a song from the point of the roasted swan on the spit. The Abbot of Cucany leads the drinkers.
• About 99% percent of Tankard's discography is about the greatness of beer. Other 1% is about how being sober sucks.
• There's an old song called "Clink, Clink, Another Drink," popularized by comedy musician Spike Jones. Notable for showing the other side of the bottle, personified by Mel Blanc in full Daffy Duck mode.
• Cab Calloway had "Reefer Man" and "Smokin' Reefer" that were directly this, though a lot of his other songs are also riddled with drug and alcohol references.
• Asylum Street Spankers have their jaunty, not at all sarcastic ode to Beer, rattling off and dismissing pretty much every other alternative.
• Dr. Dre's debut solo album, "The Chronic", was named after Marijuana and references smoking weed several times.
• Kiss likes "Cold Gin".
• Oasis, "Cigarettes and Alcohol". "Morning Glory" and "Champagne Supernova" have traces of it too, but it's more unclear.
• We Are Scientists sang about how great it is to stay out as late as possible and drink in After Hours. The sentiment of the song seems to be about the social side to drinking, and wanting to continue drinking with friends.
• Jerrod Niemann's "One More Drinking Song" Lampshades this trope.
• "Tubthumping" by Chumbawumba.
• "Red Red Wine" by Neil Diamond.
• "A Biologist's St Patric's Day drinking song" for the geeks.
• Might Mighty Bosstones have "Another Drinking Song"

"The words I'm gonna scream"
"And getting drunk's the central theme"

• Older Than Radio example: Most of the operetta The Student Prince. "Ein zwei drei vier! Lift your stein and drink your beer!"
• "Nord Mead" is what happens when an Ode to Intoxication breeds with a Filk Song.
• Brazil has quite a few songs about cachaça, such as "Marvada Pinga" ("evil cachaça"), "Pinga Ni Mim" ("drops on me" - Double Entendre meaning both raindrops and beverage drops) and Pato Fu's "Pinga".
• "Standing Sex" and the Jealousy version of "Stab Me In The Back" by X Japan. "Stab Me In The Back" is odd though in that the single version (and most of the live versions) are about gay sex - it is only the Jealousy version rewritten to be an Ode to Intoxication.
• Classic Swedish trobadour Carl Mikael Bellman wrote lots of songs about partying with pretty girls and getting drunk.
• "Just The One" by the Levellers
• There's a reggae song called "Ganja Farmer". The entire song is about the singer's ganja (weed) farm.
• "Dear Booze" by Seth MacFarlane.
• "Radio Junk" by Yellow Magic Orchestra
• Almost the entire catalogue Brazilian band Planet Hemp - though in their case, to ask for the legalization of marijuana.
• "Whiskey River" by Willie Nelson.
• "Smokin' and Drinkin'" by Miranda Lambert is both a drinking song and a pot smoking song.
• "Bartender" by Lady Antebellum.