3 of the All-Time Best 1970s Songs To Pair With a Glass of Wine

Whether you’re a cab sav loyalist or a sparkling rosé sipper, music makes a perfect pairing with every glass. In a musical world dominated by references to beer and hard liquor (or the cocktails that liquor makes, looking at you, Jimmy Buffett), wine seems lush and romantic.

At least, that’s how we feel when we listen to these three songs about the fruit of the vine.

“Elderberry Wine” by Elton John

Elton John released “Elderberry Wine” as the B-side to “Crocodile Rock” in October 1972. This particular track hasn’t reached the same level of ubiquity as, say, “Tiny Dancer” or “Rocket Man”. Still, it’s a favorite among John fans. Just like a dusty bottle of wine you only pull out on a special occasion, “Elderberry Wine” is the kind of song that makes you think of things that are precious, important, and fleeting.

In some ways, there’s a bit of melancholy to it. “Well, I can’t help thinking about the times you were a wife of mine.” By the chorus, the song reminds you that sometimes, remembering memories fondly is enough. “Drunk all the time, feeling fine on elderberry wine.”

“Cracklin’ Rosie” by Neil Diamond

At first glance, Neil Diamond’s 1970 track “Cracklin’ Rosie” sounds like a love song about a sex worker. “Oh, I love my Rosie child / She got the way to make me happy / You and me, we go in style / Cracklin’ Rosie, you’re a store-bought woman.” However, in Rich Wiseman’s Neil Diamond: Solitary Star, bassist Randy Ceirley once explained that Diamond wrote the song after a Canadian Indigenous woman told him about a popular brand of rosé wine called Cracklin’ Rose.

The reservation the woman lived on had more men than women, and there was a running joke that the men were all dating “Cracklin’ Rose” because they spent their weekends drinking it together with no actual women around. “I knew there was a song coming,” Cierley said.

“Two More Bottles Of Wine” by Emmylou Harris

Look, we’re not condoning drinking away your emotional problems. But sometimes, the only thing saving you from going completely haywire over a breakup and convincing yourself “it’s alright” is that “it’s midnight” and you’ve “got two more bottles of wine.” Emmylou Harris’ boot-scooting country track about a relationship gone wrong following a cross-country move is far jauntier than the lyrics would suggest.

Because when you move 1,600 miles away from your friends and family, get dumped by the man you moved with, and are exhausted from a janitorial warehouse job in West Los Angeles, you don’t want to wallow in your misery. You want a feel-good, “life’s tough, but so what” kind of song, and “Two More Bottles Of Wine” is just that.

Photo by Arthur Grimm/United Archives via Getty Images

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