Moonshiner - Bob Forrest/ The Bottle Song - The Clancy Brothers

I’ve been a moonshiner
For seventeen long years.
I’ve spent all my money
On whisky and beer.
I go to some hollow
And set up my still,
An’ if whisky don’t kill me
Then I don’t know what will.

I go to some bar room,
And drink with my friends,
Where the women can’t follow
And see what I spend.
God bless them pretty women
I wish they was mine,
Their breath is as sweet as
The dew on the vine.

Let me eat when I’m hungry
Let me drink when I’m dry,
Dollars when I’m hard up
Religion when I die.
The whole world’s a bottle
And life’s but a dram,
When the bottle gets empty
It sure ain’t worth a damn.

I'm not familiar with Bob Forrest, but found his performance of Moonshiner after learning that his version will be included on the soundtrack of the upcoming Dylan biopic I'm Not There.

Sometimes mistakenly attributed to Dylan, Moonshiner is a traditional song known under various titles, including Moonshiner Blues and The Bottle Song. Dylan recorded his bleak, disillusioned arrangement - faithfully replicated by Forrest - in 1962, but the song was not officially released until 1991's Bootleg Series Volume 1. The song also appears on various bootlegs, most originating with the so-called Gaslight Tape of 1962.

Here's a different, upbeat take on Moonshiner, performed by the Clancy Brothers and Robbie O'Connell. It's possible Dylan first heard the song from the Clancys, and decided to come up a 180 degree different arrangement.

The Clancy Brothers & Tommy Makem - When The Ship Comes In

via Bloomberg News:

Aug. 2 (Bloomberg) -- Tommy Makem, the musician, singer and master storyteller who teamed with the Clancy Brothers to popularize traditional Irish folk music around the world, has died. He was 74.

Makem died in New Hampshire yesterday from lung cancer, according to a posting on his Web site.

Playing banjo, tin whistle and singing in a deep baritone, Makem was known as the ``Godfather of Irish music'' for bringing Irish culture to mass audiences. His original songs, such as ``Four Green Fields'' and ``Gentle Annie,'' have become Irish folk music standards.

``He was a great entertainer,'' his lifelong collaborator Liam Clancy told RTE state radio, ``He had a knack of making an audience laugh and cry, holding them in the palm of his hand.''

Working with the Clancy Brothers -- Liam, Tom and Paddy -- Makem shot to fame in the late 1950s and early 1960s, playing to sold-out audiences at New York's Carnegie Hall and London's Royal Albert Hall. They appeared on the ``Ed Sullivan Show,'' ``The Tonight Show'' and every U.S. television network, making them at one time ``the four most famous Irishmen in the world,'' according to Makem's Web site.