Days of Wine and Roses
Days of Wine and Roses is a 1962 song by Henry Mancini with lyrics by Johnny Mercer .
Mancini and Mercer wrote the title for the film of the same name and received the Academy Award for it in 1963 . The song became popular in 1963 through the versions of Andy Williams , then Perry Como and the composer Henry Mancini himself.
The composition is in the form of AB'AB "; the tonality is predominantly in major ; the harmony sequence largely corresponds to that of the song East of the Sun (and West of the Moon) . The line of text" days of wine and roses "comes from Poem Vitae Summa Brevis by the English poet Ernest Dowson (1867–1900):
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They are not long, the days of wine and roses:
- Out of a misty dream
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Our path emerges for a while, then closes
- Within a dream.
Mancini's composition was soon recorded by jazz musicians, who were thus able to contribute to the easy listening format, which was favored by producers in the first half of the 1960s. The song quickly became popular with guitarists; so Barney Kessel , Laurindo Almeida , Joe Pass and Wes Montgomery recorded versions.
Further instrumental interpretations of the title by Bill Evans , Oscar Peterson , Bill Frisell or Biréli Lagrène have helped make it a jazz standard . The Standards Trio of Keith Jarrett took him in 1995 at his live performances in the Blue Note on.