Three Sheets to Kishkiyya · Track 101 · middle

Hair of the Dog

VOLUME V — the CURES, crawling back to life. The idiom and the song's title hook: "Hair of the Dog". Its true history: Britain (ancient practice, phrase popularized 19-20th c.) — 'the hair of the dog that bit you'; from the old folk cure for dog bites, extended to drink: more of what bit you, 'like cures like.' Render this beat of the night as the band's affectionate, funny, celebratory tribute — the idiom itself is the chorus hook.

Lyrics

[Intro]
Well, the morning came and kicked the bedroom frame.
Got a drummer in my skull who's hammering the brain.
My tongue is made of cotton and my legs are lead,
But I ain't the type to lay around dying in the sweat.
I know the ancient science, the apothecary mix,
When the poison is the problem, the poison is the fix.

[Chorus]
I need the hair of the dog that bit me,
I need a little more of the teeth that split me.
Right back to the bottle where the trouble began,
'Cause like cures like, that's the medicine of man.
Just a single little pour to chase the fog,
Give me the hair of the dog.

[Verse 2]
Back in the 19th century, if a mongrel broke your skin,
You wouldn't beg for mercy when the bleeding started in.
You plucked the dirty fur off the beast that made you bleed,
And rubbed it in the open cut to satisfy the grief.
So I'm walking to the kitchen, walking tall and walking blind,
Gonna pour exactly what it was that left me in this bind.

[Bridge]
They tell me I should hydrate, get some sugar in the blood,
But coffee's just a bandage and the tea is only mud.
I'm a scholar of the tavern, I'm a master of the craft,
I'll take the very venom that tore me right in half.

[Chorus]
Give me the hair of the dog that bit me,
I need a little more of the teeth that split me.
Right back to the bottle where the trouble began,
'Cause like cures like, that's the medicine of man.
Just a single little pour to chase the fog,
Give me the hair of the dog.

[Outro]
Yeah, the beast is getting quiet.
Pour it steady, pour it slow.
I let him bite me yesterday,
But today I run the show.
Just a drop to set the compass straight...
And maybe I should eat some toast.