Blog Post #2- Drinking Alone with the Moon by Li Bo
You can access the link to the video “I Drink Alone by” George Thorogood if you click HERE
You can access the link to the lyrics if you click HERE
Hi, I’ll have to be honest that I couldn’t think of any song to relate to the poems while reading them a couple times. I then had to search online for something I thought would relate to “Drinking Alone with the Moon” and I came across “I Drink Alone” by George Thorogood. Both of the works have a very similar title and once I read the lyrics and watched the video I felt it would be a good choice for my post.
In Li Bo’s poem, he starts his poem off saying he finds wine laying in the flowers and he’s drinking alone without friends and he invites the moon to have a drink with him which is unreal. He also considers himself, the moon, and his shadow to giving him company with the quote:
“I raise the cup to invite the moon.
He and my shadow and I make three?”
The way that I believe “I Drink Alone” relates to this is that George is also drinking alone at the bar if you watch the video and he talks about how he prefers to be by himself when he drinks. Although in Li Bo’s poem there is nothing that says that he’s an alcoholic but someone may assume he is due to him drinking with the moon and alone. The way the song relates to the last quote is that he considers his company to be different types of whiskeys. They both create imaginary friends which they drink with. The quotes from the song that prove this are:
“So I caught up my pal Jack Daniel’s
And his partner Jimmy Beam”
and
“Just me and my pal Johnny Walker
And his brothers Black and Red
And we drank alone, yeah
With nobody else”
Another thing I noticed was how in the poem he states how he sings and the moon moves “to and fro” and when he dances his shadow “leaps and sways”. He imagines the moon and shadow enacting these actions while in the song he has the whiskeys but later states that his “Old Grand-Dad” is the only person that would spend time with him. From that, I understood it as he imagines his dead grandfather drinking with him and giving him company while he drinks.
In both the poem and the song some people can say that they are depressed or lonely but I believe they are happy with drinking alone. In the song he states multiple times that he prefers to drink by himself. On the other hand in the poem, Li Bo states:
“I’ll make merry with them both”
Which shows that he accepts that he’s alone and he’ll make due with what he has.
I hope I made my points clear. If you have any questions feel free to comment.
One response so far
Really nice connections — I think the poem and this song fit perfectly together. They both celebrate drinking alone and, as you point out, both writers create companions (either in the moon or in whiskey). Nice!