Old English Drinking Songs: A Complete List of the Best Traditional Pub Classics
Few traditions have proven as stubbornly enduring as the English drinking song. Long before karaoke machines and Spotify playlists, the alehouse was the centre of communal entertainment - and song was its currency. From 17th-century broadside ballads pasted to tavern walls to the folk revival recordings of the 1960s, old English drinking songs have carried stories of farmhands, sailors, wanderers and rogues through the centuries.
The songs below have earned their place in pubs, folk clubs and wedding receptions for centuries - and none of them got there through a record deal.
What Are Old English Drinking Songs?
Old English drinking songs are traditional folk songs that emerged primarily between the 16th and 19th centuries, written to be performed in alehouses and taverns. They were built for participation. A good verse, a booming chorus, and a crowd who knew the words were all the performance equipment needed.
Historian A.L. Lloyd, whose 1961 recordings remain a definitive resource on the tradition, described them as songs "as sly as a tinker's wink, as rough as a ploughman's hand." They were working songs as much as drinking songs, carrying the perspectives of agricultural labourers, sailors, cattle dealers and travelling tradespeople who found common ground in the alehouse.
The genre flourished through the broadside ballad trade - cheap printed song sheets sold on street corners and pinned to tavern walls. Many alehouse-keepers pasted these ballads to their walls specifically to attract drinkers, and a particularly popular category known as the "Drinking and Good Fellowship" ballad kept the tradition alive through the 17th and 18th centuries.
The Best Old English Drinking Songs
1. John Barleycorn
One of the oldest and most widely recorded songs in the English folk canon, John Barleycorn uses the story of a man buried, mourned and resurrected as an allegory for the barley grain and the production of ale and whisky. The song predates written records - Robert Burns adapted it in 1782, and versions appeared in print as early as 1568.
The song follows a narrative arc with a hero, a threat, and a triumphant return - the kind of story structure that pulls a crowd through from opening verse to closing chorus. Traffic's 1970 rock recording introduced a new generation to the song, and it remains a favourite at folk sessions and weddings seeking something with genuine historical weight.
Best for: Folk nights, weddings with a traditional bent, events where a story-driven song lands well.
2. The Barley Mow
A cumulative drinking song built around rounds of ale - starting with a gill and working up through nipperkin, half-pint, pint, quart and beyond until the pub itself is emptied. The Barley Mow is a participatory song by design: each verse adds a new vessel to the list, and the singer must recite all previous vessels in order.
It has been sung in English pubs for at least three centuries. Cecil Sharp collected it in the early 20th century as part of his English folk song surveys, and it appears in multiple regional variants across the Midlands, West Country and East Anglia.
Best for: Group sing-alongs where audience participation is the point.
3. Drink to Me Only with Thine Eyes
Based on a poem by Ben Jonson from 1616, this song sits at the more refined end of the tradition. Jonson's lyrics draw on an ancient Greek source - a letter from Philostratus - but the melody used today dates from the early 19th century. The result is a gentle, romantic drinking song with literary credentials that most pub songs cannot claim.
It became popular across drawing rooms and parlours as well as taverns, which explains its survival as a singable standard rather than a folk specialist's favourite. The tune is one of the most recognisable in English song.
Best for: Weddings, formal dinners, events where the old English drinking song tradition needs to be introduced without the rowdiness.
4. Good Ale for My Money
A 17th-century broadside ballad and one of the most direct celebrations of ale in the tradition. The song makes no apologies for its subject: good ale is worth paying for, good company is worth celebrating, and the alehouse is the best place on earth. Broadside ballads like this one were a staple of English drinking culture, with alehouse-keepers pasting them up on the walls to attract drinkers, and Good Ale for My Money was among the most commonly displayed.
The song exists in several variants, and its plainspoken enthusiasm has made it a touchstone for folk historians studying 17th-century English drinking culture.
Best for: Historical folk events, themed pub nights, anyone who wants a song that makes no pretence about what it is.
5. Come, Landlord, Fill the Flowing Bowl
A round song - meaning it was designed to be sung by a group, with each voice entering at staggered intervals - Come, Landlord, Fill the Flowing Bowl dates from at least the 17th century and possibly earlier. The lyrics celebrate wine, ale and company, dismissing the man who drinks alone as a poor soul missing the point entirely.
Round songs were popular in English alehouses because they required no accompaniment, rewarded singers who could hold their part despite the noise around them, and got louder as more voices joined in. This one has held its place in the repertoire because the melody is strong enough to survive even enthusiastic amateur performance.
Best for: Group vocal events, folk sessions, casual gatherings where everyone knows at least one part.
6. The Derby Ram
A comic tall tale song about an impossibly large ram from Derbyshire, The Derby Ram has been sung in English alehouses for centuries despite having only a loose connection to the genre's formal conventions. Cecil Sharp collected it from English rural singers, and A.L. Lloyd recorded it as part of his English Drinking Songs album.
With each verse, the ram grows larger, its anatomical details more outrageous, and the audience more delighted. It is the kind of song that improves with alcohol and a receptive crowd.
Best for: Lighter entertainment sets, folk nights, events where a laugh is the goal.
7. Maggie May
A sailor's lament about a Liverpool prostitute who robbed him blind, Maggie May carries the grit of the working waterfront rather than the warmth of the alehouse. The song dates from at least the 1830s and was a standard in the repertoire of English and Irish seamen. Rod Stewart's 1971 recording shares only a title; the folk original is a different beast entirely.
A.L. Lloyd included it on his English Drinking Songs recording, and it remains popular at maritime folk festivals and events with a connection to seafaring history.
Best for: Maritime-themed events, folk sessions, anywhere a song with genuine working-class history adds authenticity.
8. All for Me Grog
A sailor's drinking song celebrating the consumption of rum, whisky, beer and tobacco in roughly equal measure, All for Me Grog has roots in both English and Irish maritime traditions. The lyrics describe a man who has spent everything on drink and is perfectly content with the outcome.
The song has been recorded widely across the British Isles, Australia and North America - carried by sailors and emigrants to wherever the tradition took root. It remains a standard at folk sessions and sea shanty events.
Best for: Maritime events, folk sessions, casual drinking occasions where the audience wants a song with grit.
9. Here's a Health to the King
A loyalist drinking toast song with roots in the Restoration period, Here's a Health to the King was sung in English taverns as a formal gesture of political allegiance - and sometimes as a quietly subversive one, depending on which king the singer had in mind. The Jacobite toast tradition overlaps with this song, and versions were sung by both crown loyalists and underground Stuart supporters.
The melody is strong, the structure simple, and the sentiment clear. It has survived because toast songs occupy a permanent place in the English social occasion.
Best for: Formal dinners, historically themed events, occasions where a structured toast is part of the programme.
10. The Wild Rover
Technically Irish in origin, The Wild Rover has been sung in English pubs since the 19th century - often indistinguishably from the English songs that surround it in any given folk session. The song tells the story of a man who wasted his money and time on drinking, presents a brief flirtation with reform, and then decides against it. The "no, nay, never" chorus is one of the most singable refrains in the folk tradition.
The Wild Rover follows the formula that has defined the most durable drinking songs: simple melody, repetitive lyrics, a chorus that needs no introduction. It has spread across Irish, English, Australian and North American pub cultures without losing anything in the process.
Best for: Any occasion. The Wild Rover is the most reliably crowd-pleasing song on this list.
Why Old English Drinking Songs Last
The drinking song is communal, multi-generational and evocative, and simple melodies, repetitive lyrics and catchy hooks have all contributed to the lasting power of the form. They were written to be sung by people who had been drinking, in rooms full of noise, by voices that were not always in tune.
That functional design is precisely what has kept them alive. A song that works in a crowded 17th-century alehouse works just as well in a modern pub, a wedding reception or a folk festival. The structural qualities that made them singable then - strong repeated choruses, simple melodies, call-and-response sections - are the same qualities that make them accessible now.
Many of the best old English drinking songs carry characters and narratives: the mythic barley man who dies and rises again, the sailor swindled by Maggie May, the Derby Ram of implausible proportions. A song with a story gives singers something to hold onto even when they do not know all the words.
How to Bring Old English Drinking Songs to Your Event
Old English drinking songs work best when the audience is invited to participate rather than simply observe. Most of the songs on this list have a chorus structured specifically for group singing - the solo verses carry the story, and the chorus is where the crowd joins in.
A band or solo performer introducing these songs to an unfamiliar audience should explain the structure briefly before singing. One verse and chorus sung solo, then a signal for the room to join in, is usually enough to get a crowd moving. Songs like The Barley Mow and The Wild Rover are particularly forgiving of an audience that does not know all the words, because the repeated chorus eventually becomes familiar regardless.
For wedding receptions and private events, a set of three to four old English drinking songs placed late in the evening - after dinner, when the room is warm and relaxed - tends to land extremely well. The communal quality of these songs builds the kind of group energy that turns a reception into a celebration.
A Living Tradition
Old English drinking songs have been declared dead on a regular basis since at least the 18th century. They have survived every announcement of their demise because they are built for the room, not the stage - and there will always be rooms full of people who want to sing together.
The songs on this list represent the tradition at its best: historically grounded, musically durable, and fundamentally social. Whether you are putting together a folk night, planning a wedding, or just looking for something to sing in a pub that has been standing for three centuries, these are the songs worth knowing.
