The 500 Dollar Bottle of Wine

Lyrics

A 500 dollar bottle of wine 
A 500 dollar bottle of wine
That's all we get for being with him all the time (1)

I give them a 500 bottle of wine
That's all they get most of the time

 A 500 dollar bottle of wine

Two days in the desert
What did they get
For all of the tears and the grind
We've been through desert
And blew on our shirts
And all the lightning and life
We said so much to (just a) crazy and white (whine?)
A half filled (no) bottle of wine

A 500 dollar bottle of wine
That's all I get man most of the time

We been through the desert
Went through their last shirts
And all the lightning and crime
A half-filled bottle of wine

 They're all fat gits and they get on our tits
They're all fat gits and they get on our tits

That's all you get most of the time
For all the life in crime
The 500 bottle of wine

Drive (been) through the desert (drive for) in 36 hours
But when we get the ending we took
The 500 dollar (bottle) of wine
A 500 dollar bottle of wine

And I feel real guilty
The babies are squealing
Starving and pleading all the time
A 500 dollar bottle of wine

A 500 dollar bottle of wine
You think it's gonna get on my tits

They all bitch
They just whinge
And drink my last bottle of wine
I feel real guilty I been through my last shirt
And I get guilty all the time

Yeah
C'mon
500 dollars

Get down the fucking liquor store boy.

Notes

1. From Hanley's The Big Midweek, p334:  "The three Goths I successfully insulted back in LA enjoyed the experience so much they left it [a bottle of wine] for us at the hotel along with a note saying it cost them $500 and was worth every cent."  However, in The Rise, The Fall, and The Rise, Brix Smith-Start has an account of the origins of this song which contradicts Steve Hanley's: "Craig [Leon] had taken it upon himself to educate me on fine wines and had bought me a 1982 bottle of Petrus Pomerol to get my collection started... He told me to hold on to it and one day it would be worth a lot of money. On one of my trips to Manchester, before Mark and I broke up, I left the bottle of Petrus in the kitchen. I put a note by the bottle saying 'Do not drink!'"

Of course, MES drank it, and told Brix "it tasted shit". "That was the inspiration for the Fall song 'The $500 Bottle of Wine'. The price of that bottle today is £6,900. " Well, to me Hanley's account fits the lyric better.

--Dan

^

SaveSave

Comments (9)

dannyno
  • 1. dannyno | 13/08/2014
In "The Big Midweek", Steve Hanley explains that the $500 dollar bottle of wine was a gift from Fall fans.
dannyno
  • 2. dannyno | 13/08/2014
From The Big Midweek, p334:

"The three Goths I successfully insulted back in LA enjoyed the experience so much they left it [a bottle of wine] for us at the hotel along with a note saying it cost them $500 and was worth every cent."

The Goth anecdote appears earlier in the book.
dannyno
  • 3. dannyno | 04/05/2016
In The Rise, The Fall, and The Rise, Brix Smith-Start has an account of the origins of this song which contradicts Steve Hanley's:


Craig [Leon] had staken it upon himself to educate me on fine wines and had bought me a 1982 bottle of Petrus Pomerol to get my collection started.... He told me to hold on to it and one day it would be worth a lot of money. On one of my trips to Manchester, before Mark and I broke up, I left the bottle of Petrus in the kitchen. I put a note by the bottle saying 'Do not drink!'


Of course, MES drank it, and told Brix "it tasted shit".


That was the inspiration for the Fall song 'The $500 Bottle of Wine'. The price of that bottle today is £6,900.


Well, to me Hanley's account fits the lyric better.
bzfgt
  • 4. bzfgt | 24/06/2016
Dan, sorry to be fussy, and you know how much I appreciate all this, but if you remember please leave out the stuff on this site, they don't function here and I have to go through and delete them. It's easier if you just write it in regular text and I can just add the italics as I go. Thank you!

Damn it, I realize that, not having read it yet, I keep referring to Brix's book as a "memoir," but it seems more accurate to call it an "autobiography," as you have been. I'll never remember everywhere I did it now, I'll just have to fix them as I come across them in the coming years...speaking of which, I killed several "Danny"s tonight! I have to think those are almost gone...
dannyno
  • 5. dannyno | 25/06/2016
I'd like to help, but I don't know what "stuff" is. You mean the quote system, or italics, or...?
dannyno
  • 6. dannyno | 25/06/2016
re: "danny". Thanks. Still some in "Copped it", and "H.O.W." and "Who Makes the Nazis"... and...
bzfgt
  • 7. bzfgt | 29/06/2016
Ah. I must have been copying your comments from gmail, and thus getting [i*][/*i} where there is italics (*s) added so they don't disappear again). The symbols disappeared in my comment because that stuff apparently does function in the comments, it just doesn't carry over into the email I get where it appears as above, minus the asterisks. I made this error because the interface I have to update the actual site uses buttons (or key maneuvers) rather than HTML operators, unless I use the HTML operator-using interface, which I don't.

As far as what to do in the future, I suppose you can carry on as you have been, and I'll just try to remember to copy your text from this page rather than my email, which would have saved me some work the other night!

Thanks for your consideration.
bzfgt
  • 8. bzfgt | 29/06/2016
OK, "Danny" has been eradicated in the songs you mentioned. I'll keep spraying for them as I go.
P.
  • 9. P. | 06/10/2021
"The babies are squealing
Starving and pleading all the time"

I've always heard:

"The babies are screaming
Starving and bleeding all the time".

Also, I've thought that the song was about Elvis, but okay it isn't.

Add a comment