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"Seven Drunken Nights" is a humorous traditional Irish song, most famously performed by The Dubliners. It was based on an older ballad, Our Goodman (Child Ballad #274), sometimes called "Four Nights Drunk". more...

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Usually only five of the seven nights are sung because of the vulgar nature of the final two. Each night is a verse, followed by a chorus, in which the narrator comes home in a drunken state to find evidence of another man having been with his wife, which she explains away, not entirely convincingly.

Lyrics of the song

Nights 1-5

On the first, night (generally Monday), the narrator sees a strange horse outside the door:

As I went home on Monday night as drunk as drunk could be,

I saw a horse outside the door where my old horse should be.

Well, I called me wife and I said to her: "Will you kindly tell to me

Who owns that horse outside the door where my old horse should be?"

His wife tells him it is merely a sow, a gift from her mother:

"Ah, you're drunk, you're drunk, you silly old fool, still you can not see

That's a lovely sow that me mother sent to me."

In each verse the narrator notices a flaw in each explanation, but seems content to let the matter rest:

Well, it's many a day I've travelled a hundred miles or more,

But a saddle on a sow sure I never saw before.

The next four nights involve a coat (actually a blanket according to the wife, upon which he notices buttons), a pipe (a tin whistle, filled with tobacco), two boots (flower pots, with laces), and finally, this being the last verse often sung, a head peering out from beneath the covers. Again his wife tells him it is a baby boy, leading to the retort "a baby boy with his whiskers on sure I never saw before." Each new item appearing in the house is said to be a gift from the wife's mother.

Nights 6-7

The final two verses are not often sung, generally considered too raunchy, and due to their rarity several different versions have circulated. Verse six sometimes keeps the same story line, in which two hands appear on the wife's breasts. The wife, giving the least likely explanation yet, tells him that it is merely a nightgown, though the man notices that this nightgown has fingers.

Another version exists with a slight twist. The man sees a man coming out the door at a little after 3:00, this time the wife saying it was an English tax collector that the Queen sent. The narrator, now wise to what is going on, remarks: "Well, it's many a day I've travelled a hundred miles or more, but an Englishman who can last til three, I've never seen before." While this departs noticeably from the standard cycle, the twist is slightly more clever, and takes a jab at the English (a popular ploy in some Irish songs). As this sort of wraps up the story, it is usually sung as the last verse, be it the sixth or seventh.

Read more at Wikipedia.org