We all know songs like “Red Red Wine” by UB40 and “Scenes from an Italian Restaurant” by Billy Joel. That led me to wonder how many other wine songs there are.
A Google Search for Wine Songs
When I did a search on Google, a list of 51 songs came up. The oldest was “Stewball” by Peter, Paul and Mary in 1963. A bunch had wine or related words in the title. Here are some of those:
- “Strawberry Wine” by Deana Carter
- “Alligator Wine” by Screamin’ Jay Hawkins
- “Lilac Wine” by Nina Simone
- “Summer Wine” by Nancy Sinatra
- “Old Red Wine” by The Who
- “Whiskey to Wine” by Garth Brooks
- “Elderberry Wine” by Elton John
- “Champagne Supernova” by Oasis
- “A Steel Guitar and a Glass of Wine” by Paul Anka
- “Cherry Wine” by Hozier
- “Tiny Bubbles” by Don Ho
- “Cheap Wine” by Cold Chisel
- “I Drink Wine” by Adele
Twelve of the songs didn’t mention wine in the title. Here are some of those:
- “For the First Time” by The Script
- “Ironic” by Alanis Morissette
- “It Was a Very Good Year” by Frank Sinatra
I’m embarrassed to say that, with a few exceptions, I had never heard of any of these songs (or the singers). How about you?
Additional Searches
Since there have to be plenty of songs written about wine earlier than 1963, I did a little more searching.
WineIntro provided a list of songs with wine in their lyrics but not in their titles:
- “A Taste of Honey” by Tom Jones: “…honey, much sweeter than wine.”
- “All Along the Watchtower” by Bob Dylan: “Businessmen, they drink my wine, ploughmen dig my earth”
— Is this a good thing, if businessmen drink your wine?” - “Best of My Love” by The Eagles: “wasting our time on cheap talk and wine, left us so little to give.”
- “Big Shot” by Billy Joel: “You had the Dom Perignon in your hand and the spoon up your nose”
- “Big Spender” by Peggy Lee: “So let me get right to the point. I don’t pop my cork for every guy I see.
Hey, big spender! Spend a little time with me!” - “Greatest Story Ever Told” by The Grateful Dead: “I asked him for water, he poured me some wine.
We finished off the bottle and broke into mine.” - “Hotel California” by The Eagles: “Please bring me my wine, he said ‘We haven’t had that spirit here since 1969′”
- “Joy to the World” by Three Dog Night: “Jeremiah was a bull frog. Was a good friend of mine. Never understood a single word he said, but he always had some mighty fine wine.”
Unraveling Wine has 70+ wine songs that include the lyrics! Spinditty has links to the YouTube videos of a bunch of wine songs.
The Oldest Song I Found
This song isn’t the oldest, but it’s pretty darn croony: “The Days of Wine and Roses” by Bobby Darin. It’s from 1963 just like the Peter, Paul and Mary song I mentioned earlier.
The oldest wine song I could find was “Drinkin’ Wine Spoo-Dee-O-Dee” by Stick McGhee and J. Mayo Williams, written in 1949, and later picked up by Jerry Lee Lewis. You’ll be happy to know that spoo-dee-o-dee is a drink that has a layer of Port on the bottom, then a layer of (cheap) bourbon, finished on the top by another layer of Port. Ready to try some?
Please share your favorite wine songs with us here.
Cheers!
