A Pub with No Beer

Gordon Parsons wrote and arranged the song about his local pub at Taylors Arm, New South Wales, adapted from Irish poet Dan Sheahan's original poem "A Pub Without Beer" about the Day Dawn Hotel in Ingham, North Queensland, and set to the tune of Stephen Foster's "Beautiful Dreamer".

The song was first performed in public by Parsons in 1954 at the 50th birthday of George Thomas, a resident of Creek Ridge Road, Glossodia (near Windsor in Sydney).

It was performed with an extra verse that was dropped from Slim Dusty's recorded version, because it contained elements of blue humour.

In January 2018, as part of Triple M's "Ozzest 100", the 'most Australian' songs of all time, "A Pub with No Beer" was ranked number 45.

His version was also released in the USA and Canada, and reportedly sold over 100,000 copies in Australia on budget-priced plastic-coated cardboard records.

[8] "A Pub with No Beer" is also the theme song and title of a 1962 Belgian-British film starring Bobbejaan Schoepen, also known as De Ordonnans and At the Drop of a Head.

[9] In 1999, the alternative rock band Dead Man Ray wrote (partly) a new soundtrack for the film and went on tour with it in the Low Countries.

[14] Anne Kirkpatrick & Slim Dusty, Bobbejaan Schoepen (Benelux, Germany, Austria, 1959/60), Johnny Cash, Wilf Carter, Harry Hibbs, Bluey Francis, Errol Gray, Foster & Allen, Gordon Parsons, the Irish Rovers, Johnny Greenwood, John Williamson (performed a parody version of the song called "A Dog With No Hair"), Nokturnl, Richard Clayderman, Rodney Vincent, the Singing Kettles, Stewart Peters and the Ten Tenors are examples of artists that have covered the song.