I Swear English › Vocabulary A–Z › Brahms and Liszt
What does ‘Brahms and Liszt’ mean?
Related forms: Cockney Rhyming Slang
Brahms and Liszt rhymes with pissed, drunk, inebriated. To have drunk too much alcohol. Brahms and Liszt is normally used with the verb to be. This phrase is most commonly employed only using the first word Brahms, however it is possible to use the full phrase. So the final construction is "to be Brahms. I think the idea of this saying is that people like to sing when they are drunk. So it is saying that a person is feeling musical i.e. drunk.
“He's been Brahms every night this week”.
“He drinks two pints and he's Brahms”.
“We arrived at the party and everybody was already Brahms”.
“Johannes Brahms was a nineteenth century German composer. Franz Liszt was a nineteenth century Hungarian pianist and composer”.
Watch: ‘Brahms and Liszt’ explained
Video transcript
B is for Brahms and Liszt. Cockney rhyming slang, you need the whole phrase. He's Brahms and Liszt, pissed. Yes pissed, p-i-s-s-e-d. Drunk. Drunk too much alcohol. OK, to be Brahms and Liszt, to be pissed. Pure Cockney rhyming slang. Yes. So, you were Brahms and Liszt last night, weren't you? In this phrase it's more common to use both parts of the phrase. The whole of Brahms and Liszt. They don't normally say you were Brahms last night, it's possible. It's more normally the whole phrase. You were Brahms and Liszt. You were pissed. You were drunk. So there you go, Brahms and Liszt, to be drunk. Thanks for watching and I'll see you in another video. Bye for now.