"Wine, women, and song" is a hendiatris that endorses hedonistic lifestyles or behaviors. A more modern form of the idea is often expressed as "sex and drugs and rock 'n' roll", a phrase popularized by British singer Ian Dury in his song of the same title.

Linguistic variations[edit]

Similar tripartite mottoes have existed for a long time in many languages, for example:

• Bengali: Sur, Sura, Sundari, lit. 'music, wine and woman'
• Bulgarian: Пиене, ядене и някоя сгодна женица, lit. 'drink, food and a good woman'
• Czech: Víno, ženy a zpěv, lit. 'wine, women and singing'
• Danish: Vin, kvinder og sang, lit. 'wine, women and song'
• Estonian: Sigarettid ja viinad ja kirglised naised, lit. 'Cigarettes, vodka and hot women'
• Finnish: Viini, laulu ja naiset, lit. 'wine, song, and women' also more modern as Finnish: Rock, ruoho ja rakkaus, lit. 'rock, weed and love'
• Georgian: ღვინო, დუდუკი, ქალები, romanized: ghvino, duduk'i, kalebi (wine, duduk, women)
• German: Wein, Weib und Gesang, lit. 'wine, woman and singing'
• Italian: Bacco, tabacco e Venere, lit. 'Bacchus, tobacco and Venus'
• Persian: Kabab, Sharab va Shabab, lit. 'meat, wine and youth'
• Norwegian: Piker, vin og sang, lit. 'girls, wine and song'
• Polish: Wino, kobiety i śpiew, lit. 'wine, women and singing'
• Portuguese: Putas, música e vinho verde, lit. 'whores, music and green wine'
• Swedish: Vin, kvinnor och sång, lit. 'wine, women and song'
• Spanish: Naipes, mujeres y vino, mal camino, lit. 'cards, women and wine, bad way'
• Colombian Spanish: Mujeres, música y trago (Women, music and drink)

Not all hendiatris including women are positive: in Greek: Πύρ, γυνή και θάλαττα, lit. 'fire, women and the sea' instead suggest three dangers rather than pleasures, and Turkish: At, Avrat, Silah, lit. 'horse, woman, weapon' offers the three essentials of quite another culture.

Roman inscriptions mention Balnea vina Venus, 'Baths, wines, sex', such as the ambivalent:

balnea vina Venus
corrumpunt corpora
nostra se<t> vitam faciunt
balnea vina Venus

"Baths, wine, and sex corrupt our bodies, but baths, wine, and sex make life worth living."

— epitaph of Tiberius Claudius Secundus, ^[1]

The following poem mentions similar ideas, using four concepts rather than three:

• Persian: دویار زیرک و از باده کهن دو منی فراغتی و کتابی و گوشه چمنی a popular Ghazal by Hafez (1325–1389):

"Two sweethearts,

Two flasks of old wine,

A book of verse

And a cosy corner in the garden."

Omar Khayyam addressed the trio in 1120 in his Rubaiyat, verse XII. For him singing was replaced by a book, but he acknowledged its importance for others.

A book, a woman, and a flask of wine:

The three make heaven for me; it may be thine

Is some sour place of singing cold and bare —

But then, I never said thy heaven was mine.

As translated by Richard Le Gallienne (1897)

Among rural Arabs in the days before Muhammed, free women "joined in the music of the family or tribal festivities with their instruments".^[2] It was a time of the "badawī Arab". A secular people then, for them "love, wine, gambling, hunting, the pleasure of song and romance ... wit and wisdom" were all important.^[2]

Possible origins[edit]

The Irish poet Edward Lysaght (1763–1810) used the phrase 'poetry and pistols, wine and women'.^[3]

In 1816 the English poet John Keats composed a poem, 'Give Me Women, Wine, and Snuff'.^[4]

The English couplet "Who loves not woman, wine, and song / Remains a fool his whole life long" appears in print as early as 1837, translated from German verse attributed to Martin Luther.^[5] John Addington Symonds used the phrase "Wine, Women and Song" as the title for his 1884 book of translations of medieval Latin students' songs.^[6]

The phrase in German is apparently older than in English. Symonds and the anonymous 1837 writer both provide the German text, attributing it to Luther. The attribution to Luther has been questioned, however,^[7][8] and the earliest known reference in German is to a folksong first printed in 1602.^[9] Bartlett's Familiar Quotations cites Johann Heinrich Voss (1751–1826) as a likely source,^[7] but any use by him would have to be a later use of the phrase.

The waltz "Wine, Women and Song" (Wein, Weib und Gesang) is Op. 333 (1869) of Johann Strauss II.

The lines Deutsche Frauen, deutsche Treue, / Deutscher Wein, und deutscher Sang (German women, German loyalty, / German wine, and German song) are found in the second verse of Das Lied der Deutschen, the third verse of which is the German national anthem.

In popular culture[edit]

• The single "Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll" by Ian Dury, mentioned above, popularized the modern English-language successor of the phrase.
• The British poet and mystic Aleister Crowley, in his work Energized Enthusiasm, suggests that "wine, women, and song" may be utilised towards the development of genius in the individual or the attainment of mystical states.
• The musical trio Wine, Women and Song consists of award-winning singer/songwriters Gretchen Peters, Suzy Bogguss, and Matraca Berg.
• AC/DC quotes the motto in the title song of their album, High Voltage (1976).
• In The Beatles' 1964 film A Hard Day's Night, the phrase is uttered by road manager Norm, in reference to Ringo, who has escaped from the studio to go gallivanting after tiring of being teased by his bandmates: "God knows what you've unleashed on the unsuspecting South. It'll be wine, women, and song all the way with Ringo when he gets the taste for it."
• In a wagon scene in Calvin and Hobbes, Calvin asks Hobbes if he thinks the secret to happiness is "money, cars and women" or "just money and cars".
• "Wine, Women an' Song" is the name of the fifth song on Come an' Get It by Whitesnake
• The Bee Gees' song "Wine and Women" starts with the sentence "wine and women and song will only make me sad". It was released as a single in 1965 in Australia and was their first top 20 on the local charts and ever in their career.
• Swedish hard rock band Talisman featuring onetime Journey frontman Jeff Scott Soto had a song called "Women, Whiskey and Songs" on their self titled 1990 debut album.
• The 1993 album by guitarist Adrian Legg titled Wine, Women & Waltz utilizes a variant of the phrase.
• "Wine Women and Song" is the first song on American rock band Harvey Danger's 2005 album Little by Little....

See also[edit]

• Joie de vivre
• Drinking culture
• Playboy lifestyle
• Bacchanalia
• Decadence

References[edit]