Moon River

I just heard a song I hadn't thought of in ages, Moon River.  It's pouring down rain and I'm feeling a little melancholy and that song cheered me right up.  The version I know best and the one I just heard is by Andy Williams, one of my mother's idols.  Back in the sixties, when I first heard it, I thought singers wrote their own songs.  Now, of course, I know better.  Sometimes the singer is just a conduit, an interpreter.

But I was surprised to find, tonight, who really DID write this song.  Johnny Mercer wrote the lyrics - you know, the same Johnny Mercer who wrote "Goody, Goody," "I remember You," and "One for my Baby, and One More for the Road."  And the music was written by a nobody named Henry Mancini - that guy who who wrote "Days of Wine and Roses," and "Charade."  A pretty good combination of talent.

I remember being shocked to hear Audrey Hepburn sing the song in Breakfast at Tiffany's.  (http://www.reelclassics.com/Actresses/Audrey/audrey.htm ).  My friend Jodi made me watch the movie my first year of college.  I thought the movie was one for my parents' generation.  I'd never seen it before, and didn't realize the song had originally been written for the film.  The movie was sad and surprising. 

Jodi wanted to BE Holly GoLightly.  She was wild and funny and wanted to party all the time and yet in private, with me, she was vulnerable and sweet.  She was small and beautiful and had boyfriends by the dozens.  I felt gawky and unsophisticated by comparison, but I wasn't jealous.  I felt privileged to be her friend.  Why would someone so sophisticated want to hang out with me?  Anyway, I had my share of admirers, and she was more than willing to give me advice about guys.  We had a great time together.  She introduced me to a whole bunch of rock and roll music, Cream, Clapton, etc. and I surprised her one night by singing the entire song, Moon River, from start to finish. I was very drunk.   

I used to love that hippy phrase so many of my friends threw at me during my hyper, control freak years.  You know, those years when I was moving up the corporate ladder, buying my home, raising my children, planning to conquer the world.   "Come on, Wendy, go with the flow."  Hey, I'm learning.  It's been a long hard journey to stop moving so fast.

I'm still traveling, happily chasing that dream, whatever it is.  We don't want to be specific here.  Drifters never are.

Moon River, wider than a mile,
I'm crossing you in style some day.
Oh, dream maker, you heart breaker,
wherever you're going I'm going your way.
Two drifters off to see the world.
There's such a lot of world to see.
We're after the same rainbow's end--
waiting 'round the bend,
my huckleberry friend,
Moon River and me.

© 1961 Paramount Music Corporation, ASCAP

 

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