How Johnny Mercer Wrote 'Days of Wine and Roses' in Just Five Minutes
How Johnny Mercer Wrote 'Days of Wine and Roses' in Just Five Minutes
Jacqueline Burt CoteTue, April 28, 2026 at 1:01 AM UTC
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It's not difficult to understand why Henry Mancini was in demand as a composer for movies in the '60s: His considerable talents were behind iconic tunes like "Baby Elephant Walk," "Theme from The Pink Panther" and "Moon River," featuring lyrics by the equally talented Johnny Mercer, which won the Academy Award for Best Original Song in 1961. What's even more impressive? Mancini and Mercer won the Oscar again the very next year for another song they wrote together, "Days of Wine and Roses."
From the movie of the same name, "Days of Wine and Roses" was sung by Andy Williams, who also sang "Moon River." The trio's second collaboration didn't just win the Oscar, it also went on to win Grammy Awards for Record of the Year and Song of the Year.
"Days of Wine and Roses" saw success on the charts, too, as the title track on Williams' album Days of Wine and Roses and Other TV Requests, which went all the way to #1 and stayed there for a whopping 16 weeks.
As music journalist Jeff Meshel explained, the title of the song (and movie) is taken from a poem by British poet Ernest Dowson (1867-1900), whose poem "Vitae Summa Brevis" contains the lines:
"They are not long, the days of wine and roses:Out of a misty dreamOur path emerges for a while, then closesWithin a dream."
Mercer's lyrics are a variation on that theme:
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"The days of wine and roses laugh and run away like a child at play / Through a meadow land toward a closing door / A door marked 'nevermore' that wasn’t there before / The lonely night discloses just a passing breeze filled with memories / Of the golden smile that introduced me to / The days of wine and roses and you."
Johnny Mercer couldn't write 'Days of Wine and Roses' 'fast enough'
In a 1970 interview with Willis Conover, Mercer opened up about the process of writing "Days of Wine and Roses," which was surprisingly quick.
"Well 'Wine and Roses' was kind of what we call a rocking chair song for me because Iwas given the title from the Ernest Dowson poem 'Days of Wine and Roses' and Henrygave me that great tune, and coupled with those two things I couldn't write the lyric fast enough," Mercer said.
"I just got out the pencil and I started to write and...I don't know if it makes sense to somepeople," the songwriter continued. "Like Andy Williams says he doesn't understand the word 'nevermore' but allegorically I understand it. On a door that you don't see, it's like a Dali painting, you know. You're walking through a meadow and suddenly there's a door and there's a word on it. You see past that, and past that you can't go. At least if you go through you can't come back. Anyway, those were the feelings that I had when I wrote the lyric. I couldn't write it down...I think I wrote it in five minutes. I couldn't write it down fast enough."
While the version of "Days of Wine and Roses" with Williams on vocals is still the most famous, the song has been covered by a number of notable artists over the years, including Frank Sinatra,Tony Bennett and Ella Fitzgerald.
Related: 1972 Classic Ballad Won an Oscar for ‘Best Original Song’ 53 Years Ago
This story was originally published by Parade on Apr 28, 2026, where it first appeared in the Entertainment section. Add Parade as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
Source: “AOL Entertainment”
