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Johnny Jump Up

from Johnny Jump Up by DruidSong

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about

Johnny Jump Up is about drinking. To paraphrase a man I respect very much but never had the opportunity to meet, “Beware of strong drink. It can make you shoot at tax collectors and miss!”

I’ve heard rumors that Johnny Jump Up is a brand name cider in the UK.

An alternative explanation is that Johnny Jump Up is a label applied to cider stored in casks that had previously been used to age whiskey. The result is a singularly potent drink.

lyrics

Let me tell you a story that happened to me as I ent for a walk down in Cork by the sea
Oh the sun it was hot and the day it was warm, Says I, “A quiet pint wouldn’t do me no harm.”
I went in and I asked for a bottle of stout. Says the barman, “I’m sorry. All the beer is sold out.”
“I’ve whiskey and paddy, ten years in the wood!” Says I, “I’ll try cider. I’ve heard that it’s good.”

Chorus:

Oh never, oh never, oh never again! If I live to be a hundred or a hundred and ten!
I fell to the floor and I couldn’t get up After drinking a pint of that Johnny Jump Up.

After downing the third, I went out to the yard, where I bumped into Brody, the big Civic Guard
“Come here to me bit! Don’t you know I’m the law?” So I up with my fist and I shattered his jaw
He fell to the ground with his knees doubled up, But it wasn’t me hit him, it was Johnny Jump Up
The next thing I remember down in Cork by the Sea was a cripple on crutches who says to me
I’m afraid all me life I’ll be hit by a car. Won’t you help me across to the Celtic Knot Bar
After downing a quart of that cider so sweet,
He threw down his crutches and he danced in the street

Well, I went down the lea road, a friend for to see. They call it the madhouse in Cork by the sea
And when I got there, sure the truth I will tell, they had this poor bugger locked up in a cell
Says the guard testing him, say these words, if you can,
“Around the ragged rock the ragged rascal ran.”
Tell him I’m not crazy; tell him I’m not mad. It was only a sip of that cider I had.

Well a man died in the mines by the name of McNab.
They washed him and laid him outside on a slab.
And after their measures the parlor did take, his wife took him home for a bloody fine wake.
‘Twas about twelve o’clock and the beer it was high when the corpse sits up and says with a sigh
I can’t get to Heaven; they won’t let me up ‘til I bring them a quart of that Johnny Jump Up.

So if ever you go down there to Cork by the sea, stay out of the alehouse and take it from me.
If you want to stay sane, don’t you dare drink a drop
Of that devil drink cider called Johnny Jump Up!

credits

from Johnny Jump Up, released June 23, 2009

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