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After workin' all this livelong year, there finally comes the day:
Me two weeks summer holidays, me trip around the bay;
Kickin' off me overalls, I marched out in me glee,
Determined to get a bottle of Screech to take along with me.
There were people there from everywhere: Grand Falls and Corner Brook,
From Joe Batt's Arm and Billy's Farm all waitin' for their book,
From Greenland's icy mountains and Tex's Kitty Brook,
All waitin' tired and thirsty for to get their book.
There were young men with curly hair and old men with bald heads,
And pretty little maidens, old maids with wooden legs,
Old men with whiskers on their chin who gave an awful look,
And their whiskers they grew longer as they waited for their book.
Well, along came a policeman, he lines us up in twos,
He had a billy in his hand, so none of us refused.
"How much longer must we wait?" said one man to the cop.
He smiled and said, "I guess you'll be too old to take a drop."
An old man looked like Noah, hung down his weary head.
He said "My God! I got to send my grandson here instead.
Saw service in the Boer War but little did I think,
I'd spend my last days tryin' to get a book to get a drink."
Well, after waitin' two long weeks, and goodness knows I tried,
With half a dollar in me hand, I finally got inside;
And walkin' to the wicket along with many more,
Such names and occupations, I never heard before.
There were tradesmen and mechanics, McIsaacs and McInns,
A couple of men of eighty years who said that they were twins,
Grave diggers and undertakers, dishwashers, stewards and cooks,
Wooden-leg and glass-eye makers all waitin' for their books.
Too late to go around the bay, my book I finally got,
So I bought myself a bottle of Screech and drank the whole damn lot;
I passed out just like a light unto the world I seen,
Boy, oh boy, while I was out what a terrible thing I dreamed!
I saw Adam eat the apple, Matthew chasing Mark,
Noah with the scrubbin' bucket scrubbin' off the Ark,
King Solomon tryin' to count his wives and Abel chasin' Cain,
So is there any wonder why I'll ever drink again?
This variant and the YouTube video above was arranged and recorded by the Newfoundland Showband (Newfoundland Showband, trk#1, 1971, Paragon Records, Toronto, Ontario).
Although usually attributed to Dick Nolan who popularised this song through his many recordings, Jack Fitzgerald, journalist, writer, columnist, reporter, editor, and government administrator, in his 2005 edition of Ghosts And Oddities (Jesperson Publishing), notes that The Liquor Book Song is a comic song about the practice in the 1940s and 1950s to restrict the sale of alcohol to two bottles per week per customer with a liquor book. The song was written by Johnny Jones and appears in The Newfoundland Song Book to commemorate the Canada Games of 1977.
The YouTube video below features a recording by Dick Nolan (Newfie Hits, trk#9, 1968, Arc Sound Co., Toronto, Ontario) and (Lukey's Boat, trk#4, 1968, Arc Sound Co., Toronto, Ontario) and as The Old Liquor Book (Down By The Sea, trk#7, 1998, Heritage Music, Scarborough, Ontario).
