During a visit to Sweden, evenings always found our party trying the lethal Swedish aquavit and swinging to drinking songs.

After the Swedes belted out their love for the drink, they turned to us and expected us to sing the Filipino version. Filipinos, after all, are known for their singing.

The Filipino men looked at each other, stumped because no one knew any drinking song. Growing up in the city, taking a drink involved just imbibing for those gents. The singing was left to the band, the chanteuse or those trying hard at karaoke warbling.

I knew a song taught by German nuns. It seemed like a drinking song because the last words were “skål, skål skål,” or “toast” in all the Scandinavian languages.

Why the nuns taught us a song about a sailor who wooed girls at every port and left them, I don’t know. But that wasn’t a Filipino song so I kept quiet.

But go to the provinces and join a drinking session and chances are you’ll be treated to drinking songs, sometimes accompanied by a lone guitar.

Drinking choir

By accident, I recorded a few seconds of a drinking song in Leyte. I had set my camera wrongly and captured the spirited voices with snatches of second voices and some kibitzing.

At a recent taping of a “Chef TV” episode, the Bayanihan National Dance Troupe sang “Tuba,” a Waray song about their favorite spirit, coconut wine. It also performed sayaw sa bangko, the dancers negotiating a narrow bench while balancing glasses of tuba on their heads and hands just to make everything a bit more interesting.

Three of the girls did “Sayaw sa Basi,” balancing glasses on their heads and hands as they rolled on the floor. Basi is the Ilocano drink made from sugar cane.

To get the lyrics of “Tuba,” I turned to a valuable reference, “The Folk Songs” compiled and edited by Damiana L. Eugenio (De La Salle University Press, 1996).

Condansoy, inom tuba, Laloy,

Dili co moinom, tuba pait aslom

Ang tuba sa baybay

Patente mo angay,

Talacsan nga diutay

Pono ang malaway

The song asks a young boy, Condansoy, to drink Laloy’s tuba but he won’t because he says the tuba is bitter and sour. The boy also believes that Laloy’s tuba sold at the beach should be patented because just a little swig will make you crazy drunk.

The book attributes the song to E. Reysio-Cruz but also says identical versions are found in Cebu, Bohol and Tacloban.

Websites dedicated to those provinces do contain that song though sometimes the name used is Dandansoy, which is also the title of a Hiligaynon farewell song.

“Plastado sa Bangko” is a Bikol song that already says in its title what can happen after you get drunk. You can be “down and out on the bench.”

Warays sing of “An Parainom,” a drunkard who lies on the street until morning (nahigda sa dalan nga na aagahon).

“Uhaw Tagay” is a Cebuano song that speaks of thirst and asks for the glass to be filled (tagay).

Pulutan

There is also a line that says if there is no sumsuman (pulutan), specialties eaten during drinking sessions, then a hinuktan or a fighting cock should be killed.

They can’t even wait for the cock to lose, talunan to Tagalogs and bihag to Warays. In the Visayas, a bihag is usually boiled because the cock has tough meat and ligaments.

But in Bulacan, according to Conrad Calalang, the talunan is braised and the dish is called pakam.

But not all drinking songs are about getting drunk and measuring drinks.

“Mananggete” is a Hiligaynon song about a tuba gatherer and describes how the coconut is tapped to produce the wine by sitting on the branch and tapping it (pamungko sa paklang kag magpatik-patik).

“Bella Fondera,” on the other hand, is a Zamboanga Chavacano song about a beautiful bar owner.

Quite quaint and unforgettable was a song rendered by two elderly women in Sariaya, Quezon. They each offered a glass of lambanog to welcome guests to one of the old, distinguished houses (malaking bahay) in the place. They sang a pandango awit taught them when they were young girls by the head of their town council. One of the guests drank his share then declared it as lambanog from nipa or sasa. A connoisseur.

I tried to find the song in the book but since I didn’t know the title and couldn’t remember the lyrics, the exercise was futile. At least I hope those women passed on that song to the younger generation or else we would have lost a part of our culture.

E-mail the author at pinoyfood04@yahoo.com

Previous columns:
Dreaming of rice cakes– 5/31/07
Filipino ingenuity – 5/24/07
Weeds, ferns and plant salad – 5/17/07
Interacting with a Singaporean cook – 5/09/07
A piece of heaven – 5/03/07
A summer harvest experience – 4/26/07