Pour This in Your Ear: A Wine Playlist

You know what you’re going to drink out of these restaurant-quality made-in-Italy Bormioli Rocco wine glasses: wine. Specifically, you know you’re going to drink red wine out of the bigger, wider-mouthed glasses and white wine out of the slimmer, smaller-mouthed ones.

But what are you going to listen to while you drink it? That’s where I come in. I’m Meh writer @JasonToon, and every Sunday I put together a weekend playlist in this space. This time, we’re listening to songs about wine, also compiled on YouTube so you don’t have to put your drink down to play the next song.

Marvin Gaye - “Days of Wine and Roses” (1964)
Originally recorded by Andy Williams for the harrowing 1962 film of the same name, this instant standard was also recorded by Frank Sinatra, Perry Como, Tony Bennett, Ella Fitzgerald and dozens of others. I went with Marvin Gaye’s version because his vocal really captures the wistful nostalgia of the lyric, and because I’d never heard it before I started putting this playlist together.

Dean Martin - “Hey Brother, Pour the Wine” (1954)
A little wine bar trivia: this rousing glassful of pseudo-Italianica was written by Chipmunk mastermind Ross Bagdasarian.

Tony Tribe - “Red Red Wine” (1969)
How did a Neil Diamond song become a UB40 hit? Via Tony Tribe’s 1969 reggae version. This is what the UB40 boys were hearkening back to with their 1984 cover.

Franz Ferdinand - “Wine in the Afternoon” (2006)
From the hazy sunshiny beginning, to the rousing climax, to the dizzy guitar spirals at the end, this Franz Ferdinand b-side charts the course of an afternoon wine binge from elegance to euphoria to oblivion.

Porter Wagoner - “Sorrow Overtakes the Wine” (1969)
Did anybody record more songs about wine than Porter Wagoner? A glance through his discography, which includes the titles “In the Shadows of the Wine”, “Bottle of Wine”, “Who’ll Buy the Wine?”, “One Dime for the Wine”, “When I Drink My Wine?” and simply “Wine”, makes it clear that ol’ Porter was not a beer man. But all those gallons didn’t keep the blues at bay, if “Sorrow Overtakes the Wine” is anything to go by.

The Bee Gees - “Wine and Women” (1965)
Long before they ever nestled a single medallion in their chest hair, the Bee Gees were a pretty good Australian fake Beatles.

Elvis Costello - “Down Among the Wines and Spirits” (2009)
Some fool is crawling through his tears on some filthy barroom floor, and he’s only got himself to blame, in this bluesy lament from Elvis Costello’s late-career roots excursion Secret, Profane and Sugarcane.

The Greenwoods - “Please Don’t Sell My Daddy No More Wine” (1966)
This has to be the most chipper, upbeat account of alcoholic child neglect ever recorded.

Otis Redding - “Champagne and Wine” (1967)
Otis Redding makes a different wine-related plea on this posthumously released slow burner: if his lady comes back to him, she’ll never have to buy her own drinks again.

Spike Drivers - “Break Out the Wine” (1967)
I don’t know much about this Detroit psych outfit, but I approve of their approach to life’s worries.

The New Pornographers - “Champions of Red Wine” (2014)
OK, I confess I have no idea what A.C. Newman’s typically oblique lyrics have to do with wine. The real reason it’s here is for those swooping keyboard chimes.

Stick McGhee - “Drinkin’ Wine, Spo-Dee-O-Dee” (1947)
The original recording of a drinking anthem often re-recorded by rockabilly, country, and early rock ‘n’ roll singers - but not quite McGhee’s original version, which reportedly included frequent use of the word “motherfucker”.

Robert Mitchum - “Little Ol’ Wine Drinker Me” (1966)
Speaking of classic American drinking songs, leave it to Robert Mitchum to record the drunkest-sounding-ever version of this one.

Japandroids - “The Nights of Wine and Roses” (2012)
The sound of a bottle of cheap wine passed around a backyard bonfire while some local band makes a godawful racket in the basement: “Don’t we have anything to live for? / Well of course we do, but 'til they come true / We’re drinking”.

That should be enough to get you through half a bottle, at least. Feel free to serve up your oenophonic favorites in the forum, or just start the playlist all over again. The more you drink, the better it sounds.

The selections in our playlist archive just get better with age:

• Italian Pop Through the Ages
• Ahhhhhh: 12 Shades of Musical Relaxation
• Campfire Hits: The '60s Pop-Folk Fad
• Grazing in the Grass: A Picnic Playlist
• Weekend playlist archive