2. Paddy's Panacea (Stick to the Craythur) (Roud 3079) Traditional

Let your quacks and newspapers be cutting their capers,
'Bout curing the vapors, the scratch, or the gout;
With their powders and potions, their salves and lotions,
Ochón, in their notions they're mighty put out.
Would you know the true physic to bother pathetic,
To pitch to the devil cramp, colic, and spleen?
You will find it, I think, if you take a big drink
with your mouth to the brink of a glass of poitín.

Chorus:
So stick to the craythur, the best thing in nature,
For sinking your sorrows and raising your joys
Oh, whack, botheration, no dose in the nation,
Can give consolation like whiskey, me boys

When a babe in the cradle, my nurse with a ladle,
Was filling my mouth with a notion of pap,
When a drop from her bottle slipped into my throttle,
I capered and waggled right out of her lap.
On the floor I lay sprawling and kicking and bawling,
'Til mother and father was both to the fore.
All sobbing and sighing, conceived I was dying,
But soon found I only was screeching for more.

So stick to the craythur....
Oh, Lord, how they'd chuckle if babes in their truckle,
They only could suckle on whiskey, me boys.

Through my youthful ingression, those times of depression,
That childhood impression still clung to me mind,
For at school or at college, the bolus of knowledge,
I never could gulp, 'till with whiskey combined.
And as older I'm growing, time's ever bestowing
On Erin's potation a flavor so fine.
And how e'er they may lecture 'bout Jove and his nectar,
Itself is the only true liquor divine.

So stick to the craythur....
Oh, Lord, it's delighting for courting or fighting,
There's naught so exciting as whiskey, me boys.

Let your philosophers dabble in science and babble
'Bout oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen's fame.
But their gin, to my thinking is not worth the drinking,
Their labor's all lost and their learning's a dream.
They may prate by the score of their elements four,
That all things, earth, air, fire, and water must be.
For their rules I don't care, for in Ireland, I swear
By St. Pat there's a fifth, and that's whiskey, mo chroí.

So stick to the craythur....
Och, whack! Art and science, meself bids defiance,
And yield in appliance to whiskey, me boys!

Come guess me this riddle, what beats pipes and fiddle?
What's stronger than mustard and milder than cream?
What best whets your whistle, what's purer than crystal
Sweeter than honey and stronger than steam?
What will make the dumb talk, what will make the lame walk?
What's the elixir of life, the philosopher's stone?
Sure, what helped Mr. Brunel to dig the Thames Tunnel,
Sure, wasn't it poitín from old Inishowen?

So stick to the craythur....
Oh Lord, I'd not wonder if lightening and thunder
Were made from the plunder of whiskey, me boys.