Alcohol has a way of lowering our inhibitions, which means that drunk folk are a lot more likely to indulge their inner crooners. It doesn't matter if they don't know the words or even if they hate the song when they're sober, a thoroughly marinated crowd will happily (or sadly, or angrily) sing their sloshed little hearts out. From a proper distance it's adorable when drunks get to singing. From up close, how much one enjoys it usually depends on how much one has had to drink. While it doesn't really matter as far as the drunks are concerned, the dry folks in the crowd know that there's a big difference between a good drinking song and a bad one. For example, REM's "It's the End of the World As We Know It (and I feel fine)" is possibly the worst drinking song ever recorded, if only because there is but one man on the planet who knows all the words and that man is Michael Stipe. Combine that with some complex harmonies at the tail end and you've got a bar room disaster waiting to happen. The following five tracks aren't like that.

1. Flogging Molly- "The Worst Day Since Yesterday"

Flogging Molly is a band that practically begs for people to get drunk while listening to their music. However boozy their albums are front to back, I'm picking "The Worst Day Since Yesterday" because a lot of people know it and familiarity is a friend to the inebriated. Also, many a good night of tearing loose has begun as an irreverent bow-finger to the troubles of daily life. If there's any song built to be sung into a quickly emptying glass with ten of your most rowdy friends, it's this one.

2. Coldplay- "The Scientist"

No band in the history of pop has been as good as Coldplay at teetering on the brink of mediocrity while still making pretty good music. This track has found its way into just about every break-up rotation for those too sullen to be original. There's something admirable about a song that affects so many people. "The Scientist" is a song for hitting the hard stuff when you're feeling like hell, especially when it comes to the end and you're just drunk enough to howl along with Chris Martin's falsetto.

3. They Might Be Giants- "Dead"

They Might Be Giants has an unfair reputation as a quasi-novelty band that writes silly songs. Really, at their best the two Johns just don't take image all that seriously. They write good music with unique lyrics, like this simultaneously fun and sad song that is nothing if not a laundry list of regrets. It's surprisingly easy as a soused sing-along track and it wouldn't be difficult to crowd around a piano and do a drunk cover version of your own.

4. The Indigo Girls- "Galileo"

The flip side of regret is inspiration. Maybe, despite all those mistakes, it's still possible to do something good, even amazing with life. That's what this power-folk track by The Indigo Girls is all about. After all the down-in-the-dumps moaning and shouting that gets people drinking in the first place, it's important to take the pliable emotions of drunkenness and turn them positive. Preferably in song.

5. Tom Waits- "Come On Up To The House"

There is no better bar musician than Tom Waits, period. His albums could be used as drinking compilations on their own. This may be one of the most Tom Waits-y songs in his extensive catalog and it may be the best way to announce closing time. Spiritual but not really religious, sympathetic and sweaty, it's the song of people about to pass out on their beds, or the bathroom floor. While you'll wake up regretting most of what you did with your night, for three minutes and fifty-five seconds Tom Waits made it all seem worthwhile.