"
A Pub with No Beer" is the title of a humorous
country song made famous by country singers
Slim Dusty (in Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States) and
Bobbejaan Schoepen (in Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany and Austria).
The song was written about his local pub at
Taylors Arm, New South Wales, adapted by
Gordon Parsons from the original poem "A Pub Without Beer" by Irish poet Dan Sheahan of
Ingham, North Queensland, in the Day Dawn Hotel, now known as
Lees Hotel, Ingham, Queensland. The song gently explores the "devastation" caused to a pub and its community when its beer supply is interrupted.
The song was first performed in public by Gordon Parsons in 1954 at the 50th birthday of George Thomas, a resident of Creek Ridge Road, Glossodia (near
Windsor in Sydney). It was performed with an extra verse that was dropped from Slim Dusty's recorded version, because it contained elements of
blue humour.
In January 2018, as part of
Triple M's "Ozzest 100", the 'most Australian' songs of all time, "A Pub with No Beer" was ranked number 45.
[1]
WIKIPEDIA
In 1957, Slim Dusty's version of "A Pub with No Beer" became the first Australian single to become a
gold record and was the biggest-selling record by an Australian at the time. It was the first single by an Australian artist to enter the British charts, reaching number three.
[2] The song was also covered by country artist
Johnny Ashcroft in 1957. His version was also released in the USA and Canada, and reportedly sold over 100,000 copies in Australia on budget-priced plastic-coated cardboard records.
In 1959, Dusty wrote and recorded a sequel, "The Answer To A Pub With No Beer", explaining the reason for the beer delivery truck's failure to arrive and describing the townsmen's efforts to solve the problem. Another sequel, "The Sequel to a Pub with No Beer", shows that the town now has a guaranteed delivery, thanks to air freight.
In May 2001,
Australasian Performing Right Association (APRA) celebrated its 75th anniversary by naming the
Best Australian Songs of all time. As decided by a 100 strong industry panel, "A Pub With No Beer" was ranked fifth on the list.
[3] In June 2008, the song was included in the
National Film and Sound Archive's
Sounds of Australia registry.
[4]
