Spill the wine and take that pearl
bicoastal November 22nd, 2006
I was listening to the song “Spill the Wine,” by Eric Burdon & War, and it got me thinking about west and east coast approaches to spilled wine and seduction. Before you go any further, crank up the song now, or go get it on iTunes. Really, don’t go any further until the song is playing.
For those who aren’t familiar with the band or the song, background from Wikipedia:
War was a multiracial, multicultural American funk band of the 1970s from Los Angeles, California . . . . Formed in 1969, War was the first and most successful musical crossover, fusing elements of rock, funk, jazz, Latin music, R&B, and even reggae. The band also transcended racial and cultural barriers with a multi-ethnic line-up. The band’s diverse musical influences have made it an enduring influence, one that has sold nearly 25 million records to date. Although War’s lyrics are often socio-political in nature, their music usually had a laid-back, California funk vibe.
In 1969,
Eric Burdon & War began playing live shows and immediately found themselves in front of sold-out audiences throughout Southern California before entering into the studio to record their debut album Eric Burdon Declares WAR. The album’s key track, the erotic, spaced-out, Latin-flavored “Spill The Wine,” was an immediate worldwide hit and launched the band’s career.”
I first heard this incredible song while driving around Washington, D.C. in the summer of 1998. It was an unbearably humid summer, like most D.C. summers, and I was disgusted with the unctuous crowd that lines the insides of our nation’s capital. Spill the Wine is a song about leaving that all behind. It begins,
I was once out strolling one very hot summer’s day
When I thought I’d lay myself down to rest
in a big field of tall grass
I lay there in the sun and felt it caressing my faceAs I fell asleep and dreamed
I dreamed I was in a Hollywood movie
And that I was the star of the movie
This really blew my mind, the fact that me,
an overfed, long-haired leaping gnome
should be the star of a Hollywood movie
These verses are about being someone else, somewhere else. But really, they are just entree to the heart of the song, a paean to getting it on with a hot woman whose mantra is “Spill the wine and take that pearl, Spill the wine and take that pearl.”
But there I was, I was taken to a place, the hall of the mountain kings
I stood high upon a mountain top, naked to the world
In front of every kind of girl, there was
long ones, tall ones, short ones, brown ones,
black ones, round ones, big ones, crazy ones…Out of the middle came a lady (spanish)
She whispered in my ear something crazy (spanish)
She said:Spill the wine and take that pearl, Spill the wine and take that pearl
Spill the wine and take that pearl, Spill the wine and take that pearlI could feel hot flames of fire roaring at my back
As she disappeared, but soon she returned
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 (spanish)
And just before she drank it, she said:
Take the wine, take that pearl
Spill the wine, take that pearl
Spill the wine, take that pearl
Spill the wine, take that pearl
Take that pearl, yeah!
It’s on girl, all you gotta do is spill that wine
Spill that wine, let me feel, let me feel hot, yeah! yeah!
Spill the wine, spill the wine, spill the wine, spill the wine,
Spill the wine, spill the wine, spill the wine,
Take that pearl
What Eric Burdon and the War are telling us, quite literally, is that if you’re ever lucky enough to doze off one day, one week, one lifetime, and find yourself targeted by a beautiful Spanish-speaking woman, you’ve got to spill the wine, and take that pearl. The repetition of the chorus suggests that you might even do it more than once.
This is clearly a west coast approach to seduction. An east coaster would see the spill as an adversity, a misfortune. An east coaster would fret about cleaning up the spill and then forget to take the pearl. A true west coaster knows that there is no better way to express your passion for someone then to exuberantly spill wine (once, even twice), and take that pearl. It is a mitzvah.
Spill the wine and take that pearl.
Truer words never were spoken.
this post went from awesome to fucking awesome with the larry david-esque use of “mitzvah.” although, you know, bicoastal curious, i still think that your description is more aspirational than it is accurate, as a matter of description, at least for youself. but i like that that’s what you’re aspiring to. so here’s to wine-spillers and pearl-takers, and west coast-aspirers.
true