Folk Tradition
The structure and bawdy nature of the song allow it to be sung from memory by convivial companies. Among polite audiences only five of the seven nights usually are sung because of the vulgar nature of the final two. Each night is a verse, followed by a chorus, in which the narrator comes home in a drunken state to find evidence of another man having been with his wife, which she explains away, not entirely convincingly. The song also became part of American folk culture, both through Irish-Americans and through the blues tradition.
Read more about this topic: Seven Drunken Nights
Famous quotes containing the words folk and/or tradition:
“I think that Richard Nixon will go down in history as a true folk hero, who struck a vital blow to the whole diseased concept of the revered image and gave the American virtue of irreverence and skepticism back to the people.”
—William Burroughs (b. 1914)
“It is characteristic of the epistemological tradition to present us with partial scenarios and then to demand whole or categorical answers as it were.”
—Avrum Stroll (b. 1921)