Songs About Wine – A Spotify Playlist

Alexander is a writer and a wine drinker; he is using the former occupation to increase his appreciation of the latter.
Read more about Alexander Velky and see other articles by this author.

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Wine and song go way back, and both are commonly associated with good cheer and good times, so it’s something of a shame that the meeting point between the two is quite often a melting pot for misery.

When I began compiling my ‘Songs About Wine‘ Spotify playlist it was with the earnest intention of amassing a body of work that celebrated my favourite drink; subjecting myself to the woes of thirty-odd dysfunctional men and women was not on the remit, but alas the two seem to go hand-in-hand.

Self-pity is big business in wine-themed song-writing: from the Dean Martin classic ‘Little old wine drinker me‘ to more modern takes on the relationship between songwriter and the contents of a 75cl bottle, such as Ryan Adams‘ miserable ‘Strawberry Wine‘ and the Alkaline Trio ode to affordable alcoholism, ‘Cooking Wine‘.

There are some more upbeat numbers here, though; Leddra Chapman‘s ‘Wine Glass‘ uses the vessel as a focus for her admiration of the target of her affections: “I love the way you hold your wine glass too“; Gordon Bok‘s take on the Aussie folk song ‘Plastic Container of Plonk‘, while perhaps not a tribute to the heritage of viticulture, is joyous, and Fountains of Wayne‘s ‘Mexican Wine‘ is at once a tragi-comic exploration of our greater insignificance, an ambivalent paean on mortality and – crucially – an advertisement for the wares a seldom-celebrated wine producing nation.

The selection process was hardly rigorous, I admit: I was wary of making a Top-10-style playlist because of all the important wine-themed songs I’d inevitably omit. (There’s a good Top-30 one here). And I didn’t want to be quite so tenuous as to include Marvin Gaye‘s ‘I Heard It Through The Grapevine‘, or any of the hundred-odd songs that have ‘Champagne‘ in the title. Nor did I want to incorporate solo-piano easy-listening crimes against taste like ‘The Noble Grapes‘ by Robert Skiles or Wine Country Sunset (follow both links for Spotify samples at your peril).

What I did want was a big list of decent songs in or around the subject of wine, and the fact that most of them have ‘wine’ in the title really can’t hurt, can it?

A few notes on stand-out tracks, then.

Lee Hazlewood and Nancy Sinatra‘s ‘Summer Wine‘ remains a stone-cold classic, detailing an encounter between two colourful characters, a lot of drinking, and a ‘Whiskey In The Jar‘-lite-style deception. Bloody women, eh? It’s a cautionary tale, and there are a few of those on here. See also The Handsome Family‘s fantastic ‘So Much Wine‘, in which a pleading man addresses his wayward lover with a troubling philosophy:

“Listen to me, butterfly: there’s only so much wine you can drink in one life,
And it will never be enough to save you from the bottom of your glass.”

Puerto Muerto‘s ‘Blood Red Wine‘ is a creepy cabaret charmer; The Raveonettes‘ enigmatically-titled ‘Wine‘ is, to be fair, quite miserable, but it’s a slab of solid-gold shoegaze all the same; and Monty Python‘s outrageous ‘Australian table wine‘ (not technically a song, but worth including nonetheless) is all the more fun in a world where Australian wines are taken very seriously indeed.

Former-wino Cerys Matthews‘ warbling ode to ‘Chardonnay‘ can’t have done the maligned grape any PR favours, but the Roger Cook/Hugh Cornwell-penned number helped establish her as a solo artist following her split from Catationia. Swedish indie-pop outfit The Cardigans‘ ‘I need some fine wine and you, you need to be nicer‘ (hell of a title!) is a similarly-fraught number probably in need of a government health warning in most EU countries. Loudon Wainwright III‘s ‘White Winos‘ is a heart-rending autobiographical tale of sharing glasses of “Sancerre, Chardonnay, Chablis, Pinot Grigio” with his late mother, which, with trademark questionable taste, turns oedipal toward the end.

It’s all a far cry from Al Stewart‘s wholesome, hands-down-best-album-about-wine-EVER, ‘Down In The Cellar‘, represented here by the song of (almost) the same name: the British folk-rock songwriter’s sixteenth album pays tribute to his latterday occupation as a wine collector, featuring songs involving wine, songs about wine and even – in this case – songs about wine-makers. I’ve no doubt Jean-Luis Chave felt it was a fitting tribute to his trade.

Here’s the playlist in full:

1. Little old wine drinker me - Dean Martin
2. White winos – Loudon Wainwright III
3. Mexican wine – Fountains of Wayne
4. Heart full of wine – Angus & Julia Stone
5. I need some fine wine and you, you need to be nicer – The Cardigans
6. Red wine teeth – The Wave Pictures
7. Blood red wine – Puerto Muerto
8. Cooking wine - Alkaline Trio
9. Wine glass – Leddra Chapman
10. Half full glass of wine - Tame Impala
11. Summer wine – Lee Hazelwood & Nancy Sinatra
12. Strawberry wine – Ryan Adams
13. Red wine poet boy – The Fine Art Showcase
14. Just the wine – Heart
15. God of wine – Third Eye Blind
16. Spanish red wine – Ben Harper and Relentless7
17. Australian table wine – Monty Python
18. (Introduction to…)
19. Plastic Container of Plonk – Gordon Bok
20. Cheap wine – Blood For Blood
21. So much wine – The Handsome Family
22. 3 Bottles of wine – Left Alone
23. Glass of wine – Dengue Fever
24. Wine & depression – New Bomb Turks
25. I like my wine – Michael Hurley
26. Country wine – The Low Anthem
27. Chardonnay – Cerys Matthews
28. Sweet sangria - Tori Amos
29. Bottom of the barrel – Amos Lee
30. The wine song – The Cat Empire
31. Down in the cellars – Al Stewart
32. Red, red wine – Neil Diamond
33. Yesterday’s wine – Willie Nelson
34. Wine - The Raveonettes

Listen here.

Surprisingly, perhaps, there’s only one track that springs to mind that was not available on Spotify - ‘I drink the wine‘ by Seattle‘s finest, The Murder City Devils.

As well as proving once-and-for-all that wine is much more rock ‘n’ roll than beer, its not-uncommon-theme of a disastrous love affair unravelling is expertly summed up in the simple couplet, “I drank the wine / And I threw away the rose“.

Here’s a rollicking live version of the song in which lead-singer Spencer Moody appears to forget half of the first verse:

What are your favourite wine-themed songs? Share your thoughts and/or playlists below!