Spill the Wine

The group Eric Burdon and War wrote the Spill The Wine song back in the drug-induced haze of the 60s. These have got to be some of the most misquoted lyrics ever played on the radio, but they definitely involve wine!

For a group that only made 2 albums, Spill the Wine has got to be their most lasting legacy. If anything, half of its legacy is that few people can understand what the lyrics are saying! They talk about a guy walking in a field of grass on a hot summer's day. He fell asleep and dreamt about being in a mountain top, naked, surrounded by girls. And one says:

"Spill the wine and take that pearl,
Spill the wine and take that pearl.

Yes, those lyrics have been misheard in just about every manner possible. Often it's "dig that girl" or "take that girl"

The girl leaves and then comes back. The dreamer says -

In her hand was a bottle of wine, in the other, a glass
She poured some of the wine from the bottle into the glass
And raised it to her lips
And just before she drank it, she said

and off into the lyrics it goes again.

Unfortunately for us wine drinkers, the lyrics actually have nothing to do with wine (or girls for that matter). The pearl referred to the pearl of the orient, i.e. heroin. Spilling the wine was a slang term for the blood that dripped when you were doing the drugs. A similar song is Mother of Pearl, by Roxy Music, where the singer says

"Oh mother of pearl
I wouldn’t trade you
For another girl"

So yes, this is a song that mentions wine, but it's definitely not *about* wine!

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