“I Drink Alone” by George Thorogood

"I Drink Alone" is George Thorogood's barstool comedy routine set to a blues-rock stomp, track two on Maverick, his sixth album with the Destroyers, which EMI America put out in 1985 before the song went out as a single. Thorogood wrote it as a salute to Lee Marvin, and the spark came from On the Waterfront, from a line of Marlon Brando's to Eva Marie Saint about having the rest of his life to do his drinking alone.

He first pictured it as a country song for George Jones, but EMI insisted the Destroyers record it themselves. It follows a man who mostly drinks by himself, naming bottle after bottle, and Thorogood calls it a comedy song about a loner who wants to stay that way. The pauses in the intro were a nod to J. Geils.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.