“Drink Up and Go Home” was written by Freddie Hart. He recorded it in Hollywood on 23 August 1956, at a Radio Recorders session produced by Don Law, with Johnny Bond and Joe Maphis on guitars, Marian Hall on steel guitar, Skeets McDonald on bass, Pee Wee Adams on drums and William Wardle on piano. Columbia issued it as 4-21558, with “Blue” on the other side. Hart recorded it again in Nashville in December 1966, on the Kapp album A Hurtin’ Man.
The lyric is a brush-off in a barroom. A man is crying in his beer over his troubles, and the singer will not hear them: he has enough of his own, having just come out of six years in prison with his wife and family gone and no friend to call. He points to a blind man in the back who does not complain, and tells the drinker to be thankful he is alive and go home.
The song reached bluegrass bands within a year of Hart’s record. The Stanley Brothers and the Clinch Mountain Boys played it at Unity Hall in Dundalk, Maryland, on 6 July 1957 (issued in 2017 on Valley View Park, 1957), and Bill Monroe and the Blue Grass Boys played it at New River Ranch in Rising Sun, Maryland, on 1 August 1959. Jimmy Martin and the Sunny Mountain Boys recorded it on 30 October 1961 at Bradley Studio in Nashville, with Paul Williams on mandolin, Paul Craft on banjo, Junior Huskey on bass and Willie Ackerman on drums; it came out in June 1962 on the Decca album Country Music Time (DL 4285). Jerry Garcia and David Grisman recorded it at Dawg Studios for Been All Around This World (Acoustic Disc ACD 57, 2004), with Joe Craven on fiddle and Jim Kerwin on bass.
