Such is the case with this week's tune, "Spill the Wine" by Eric Burdon and War, which I "discovered" about ten years ago after I'd picked up a copy of War's Greatest Hits in a discount bin in some now long forgotten record shop. I'd heard it many times before, but somehow listening to it in my car driving back and forth to work triggered something in my brain that made the song into an all-time fave (of course, I was working for Kmart at the time, so I may have wanted a swig of wine as I drove to and from their store...).
Eric Burdon is famed for being the lead singer of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inducted band, The Animals, which, truth be told, outside of "The House of the Rising Sun" is a band that I'm not terribly fond of. The Animals had a number of hits in the 60's before the usual rigmarole left them in the dustbins of Rock and Roll Bands that Eventually Broke Up. At that point Burdon teamed up with War (regular readers may remember my write up of War's "Summer" earlier this year) for a couple of albums before embarking on the Famed Band Member Goes Solo Tour which pretty much went absolutely nowhere. Still, Burdon is recognized as on of the all-time great rock and roll vocalists (#57 on Rolling Stone's list of The 100 Greatest Singers of All-Time).
Released in 1970 on the very coolly named LP, Eric Burdon Declares "War", "Spill the Wine" was War's first chart hit, reaching #3 (most assuredly with a bullet!) on the Billboard Hot 100. Though not on par with Alexander Fleming's accidental discovery of penicillin, "Spill the Wine" was an accidental song of sorts--while recording, one of the band members accidentally spilled some wine on the soundboard, which Burdon and War member Lonnie Jordan deemed hilarious (one supposes a bit of the famous weed may have sparked such hilarity over a not particularly funny incident) and composed the song in response.
One of the more amazing things about the song, to me, is how easily it could have been little more than a novelty song, but somehow isn't. Part of this is the lyrics themselves--a series of rambling and bizarre monologues that sound like they're out of a Tim Burton movie. Not your average "Gangnam Style" bullshit for your average American. The rest of it, of course, is the jazz/funk/pop/R & B stylings of War--I'm not exactly a Funkmaster, but even I can't help but both marvel at and shake my tailfeather to the music. Combine those two with a simple and catchy as all hell chorus--"Spill the wine, take that pearl" is the sum of it--and you have another classic for Friday Night Jukebox.
Did I mention there's also a flute solo in the background throughout? Another of those Moments You Don't Find All That Often In Pop Songs....
Rap sheet (note that some consider this song to be among the early influences of rap): "I thought to myself, what could that mean?/Am I going crazy, or is this just a dream..."
Enjoy:
Peace,
emaycee
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