oh dear. I didn't realize that would all appear on the front page. I suppose 4:30 in the morning isn't the best time to learn to use metachat.

Summer Lovin' from Grease is always a great drunken sing-along, and you can even get girls vs boys if there are enough people.

I think there is an old Russian proverb that says "A man who will not sing drunk, has sins no church can absolve." Meaning, I guess, that people who cannot forget themselves in drink and song are afraid they'll confess to murders if they did. So, perhaps you wouldn't really want your "stick in the mud" friends "unstuck" after all.

The tune of the American national anthem is hard to carry precisely because it was first a drinking song (i.e. it was supposed to be hard to sing, and it's extreme range, which is beyond the average that can comfortably be sung, was thought to force people to try to re-range it by singing octaves, or re-harmonizing it, dynamically, to hilarious effect):

"... It is very likely that [Francis Scott] Key only ever intended this as a poem. However, there was a very popular tune of the time which had the same form and metre, and there can be no doubt that Key was heavily influenced by it - ironically, this was the tune of a British drinking song!

When the handbills were printed, they bore the name of this tune to which the poem should be sung - To Anacreon in Heaven. Nobody is sure whether this was Key's idea, or whether his brother-in-law had made the connection, but to this day the American National Anthem is sung to the tune of a British drinking song.

At one time, the English composer Dr Thomas Arnold was thought to be its composer - it was used as the constitutional song of the Anacreonic Society, a drinking club based in a pub in the Strand, London, for which Arnold had written numerous songs. However, it is now accepted that the tune was actually written by John Stafford Smith for the same society, probably in 1771. ..."

So, here are the real words to "The Star Spangled Banner," and we'll expect you to memorize them, and sing them the next time you get drunk.

Be careful what you wish for, paulsc. I really like singing, and I have access to recording devices. It's best not to encourage me.

And thanks for all the data. Knowing our anthem is based on a drinking song only makes me love it all the more.

I'm fond of singing the French national anthem when drunk. It's loud and sounds empiric.