[Source: BBC]

As Shaboozey’s A Bar Song (Tipsy) becomes one of the country’s most celebrated tracks in 2024, what made this tribute to good-time drinking resonate so much this year?

At the dawn of 2024, not many would have predicted that the biggest names in country music this year would be Jelly Roll, Post Malone, Beyoncé, and a 29-year-old US singer-rapper of Nigerian descent named Shaboozey.

Yet Shaboozey – born Collins Obinna Chibueze – is poised to end December with one of the most celebrated songs of the year. A Bar Song (Tipsy) not only became the longest-running number one song on Billboard’s Hot 100 chart in the publication’s 66-year history – a distinction tied only by Lil Nas X for Old Town Road in 2019, but at the time of writing, it also spent its 25th week atop Billboard’s Hot Country Songs chart. Multiple Grammy nominations for the singer are also in play. Having a Billboard record tied by two black artists with country songs is significant, since black performers, until recently, have traditionally been underrepresented on the country charts.

Like Old Town Road, the domination of A Bar Song (Tipsy) is tied to its crossover appeal. The strummed acoustic guitar, ghostly whistling, and lively fiddle create a Spaghetti Western vibe that results in a chorus perfectly tailored for line dancers at the neighbourhood club: beat counting, handclaps and group vocals make it irresistible. But there’s also rap decadence lining the lyrics – Shaboozey’s weary vocals make it clear that the hour is late in clubland and the point of no return has arrived.

Like its title suggests, A Bar Song (Tipsy) is the sound of someone teetering on a razor edge, with salvation on one side and wreckage on the other. Where things fall depends on how many more double shots of whiskey the singer can throw back.

In that way, the song is as old as the genre itself. Drinking songs represent a subgenre of country music that dates back its earliest roots. The folk music that emerged from Appalachia in the early 20th Century often incorporated moral religious language regarding alcohol. Wreck on the Highway (1938), for example, tells the story of a horrible car accident where “whiskey and blood run together” in the aftermath.

Drinking became more prominent in the post-World War Two honky-tonk era, when the music added drums and electrification, picked up the tempo, and infused songs with greater psychological despair. The architect of the sound was Hank Williams, whose catalogue created the blueprint for modern country music. Williams was also a notorious alcoholic and prescription drug addict whose ultimate demise – death by heart attack at the age of 29 – appeared lifted from one of his songs.

Williams set the bar for landmark country and folk artists, from George Jones to Ira Louvin to Townes Van Zandt, whose music channeled the depths of their lifelong struggle as fellow alcoholics. While there are many jolly country songs that celebrate alcohol’s many pleasures – I Like Beer by Tom T Hall (1975), A Six Pack to Go by Hank Thompson (1966), and Chug-a-Lug by Roger Miller (1964) are the best examples – the most poignant songs about drinking tend to be those grappling with the reasons people seek a bottle in the first place. For example, on The Bottle Let Me Down (1966) by Merle Haggard and If Drinkin’ Don’t Kill Me (Her Memory Will) (1981) by George Jones, alcohol is a remedy for killing memories of a failed romance