After the first preview screening of Breakfast at Tiffany’s in 1961, Paramount studio head Martin Rackin was impressed. “I love the picture, fellas,” he told the crew, which included star Audrey Hepburn and composer Henry Mancini, “but the f***ing song has to go.” The song in question was “Moon River”, sung by Hepburn’s character, eccentric New York good-time girl Holly Golightly. Mancini later recalled Hepburn’s outrage: she shot out of her seat and insisted, “Over my dead body!”
The song was saved, but Hepburn’s reaction was surprising — originally she hadn’t even wanted to sing. She wasn’t a singer, but Mancini tailored the melody to her limited vocal range. He spent a month tinkering. “One night after midnight I was still trying,” he told Time magazine in 1962. “I don’t drink much, but I was sipping. And it came to me. I wrote the song in half an hour.” He never wrote down the resulting melody, a swooning romance that drifts like a rowboat on a gentle swell. He sent the tune to songwriter Johnny Mercer, who penned lyrics that harked back to the landscape of his childhood in Savannah, Georgia.
After much practice, Hepburn’s wispy performance was a triumph. She was pleased with the result, writing to Mancini: “Your music has lifted us all up and sent us soaring… You are the hippest of cats — and the most sensitive of composers!” Mancini’s music won two Academy Awards and two Grammys. In 2004 “Moon River” was named the fourth most memorable song in Hollywood history by the American Film Institute, after “Over the Rainbow”, “As Time Goes By” and “Singin’ in the Rain”.
That “Moon River” has remained so widely loved despite its familiarity is credit to its bittersweet melody, passed from guitar to voice to George Fields’ plaintive harmonica. It’s a love song, but not addressed to a lover. The “dream maker” and “heart breaker” is the river itself. It’s a metaphor of yearning for the unpredictable eddies of an adventurous life, to be swept along by the currents to somewhere new: “Wherever you’re going, I’m going your way.”
Of the more than 500 covers of “Moon River”, crooner Andy Williams took the song closest to heart. He recorded it in 1962 and went on to sing the opening bars in every episode of his variety TV show. He named his production company Moon River, as well as the theatre he opened in 1992. In his autobiography, Moon River and Me, he wrote: “When I hear anybody else sing it, it’s all I can do to stop myself from shouting at the television screen, ‘No! That’s my song!’”
In fact, some of his contemporaries interpreted the song with far more originality. Louis Armstrong’s arrangement is one of the best, his voice tremulously holding on to the end of each line, adding a classy trumpet coda. Aretha Franklin whips through the lyrics at a spirited clip, accompanied by big blasts of brass, while Frank Sinatra’s buttery rendition sounds as if the song was written just for him.
Perhaps most poignant is Judy Garland’s tortured performance on her short-lived variety show in 1963. The song had particular resonance for Garland, who was said to have been lovers with lyricist Mercer. She appears stick-thin with a sculptural wave of hair, already nearing the end of her life. At the song’s crescendo, her composure falters, a manic expression darting across her face before she bites her lip, as if holding back a sadness she can’t quite contain.
One of the better recent covers is Morrissey’s, who punctures the song’s dreamy surface with his jaded delivery, stretching the arrangement over 10 minutes before his voice dissolves in a soft storm of reverb (Morrissey also released a shorter live version). In 2018 Frank Ocean brought “Moon River” to a new generation, harmonising and interrupting himself while drifting from helium highs to honey-voiced intimacy.
It’s striking how conservative most versions of “Moon River” are. Barry Manilow, Elton John and Katie Melua added little to the original. When Barbra Streisand or The Killers try to project the arrangement on to a grand scale, it fails. Mancini always believed that Hepburn’s rendition was best. “No one else has ever understood it so completely,” he said. Perhaps this is because Hepburn understood that the power of “Moon River” isn’t just the dream of adventure, “waiting ’round the bend”. It’s knowing that it will only ever be a dream, and choosing to dream it anyway.
What are your memories of ‘Moon River’? Whose is the finest version? Let us know in the comments section below.
‘The Life of a Song Volume 2: The fascinating stories behind 50 more of the world’s best-loved songs’, edited by David Cheal and Jan Dalley, is published by Brewer’s.
Music credits: Amazing Sound; ITwinBirdz; Universal-Island Records Ltd; Historic Live Concert Radio Broadcast; G Records; Parlophone UK; Blonded
Picture credit: Getty Images