Drinking song in the context of Midsummer

Anacreon (c. 573 – c. 495 BC) was an Ancient Greek lyric poet, notable for his drinking songs and erotic poems. Later Greeks included him in the canonical list of Nine Lyric Poets. Anacreon wrote all of his poetry in the ancient Ionic dialect. Like all early lyric poetry, it was composed to be sung or recited to the accompaniment of music, usually the lyre. Anacreon's poetry touched on universal themes of love, infatuation, disappointment, revelry, parties, festivals, and the observations of everyday people and life.

A limerick (/ˈlɪmərɪk/ LIM-ər-ik) is a form of verse that appeared in England in the early years of the 18th century. In combination with a refrain, it forms a limerick song, a traditional humorous drinking song often with obscene verses. It is written in five-line, predominantly anapestic and amphibrach trimeter with a strict rhyme scheme of ${\displaystyle \mathrm {AABBA} }$, in which the first, second and fifth line rhyme, while the third and fourth lines are shorter and share a different rhyme.

It was popularized by Edward Lear in the 19th century, although he did not use the term. From a folkloric point of view, the form is essentially transgressive; violation of taboo is part of its function. According to Gershon Legman, who compiled the largest and most scholarly anthology, this folk form is always obscene and the exchange of limericks is almost exclusive to comparatively well-educated men. Women are figuring in limericks almost exclusively as "villains or victims". Legman dismissed the "clean" limerick as a "periodic fad and object of magazine contests, rarely rising above mediocrity". Its humour is not in the "punch line" ending but rather in the tension between meaning and its lack.

A sing-along is an event of singing in unison at school assemblies, gatherings or parties; common genres are folk songs, pop songs, hymns and drinking songs.