Moon River, an immortal composition so wistfully, melodically beautiful that it literally makes me cry, resides on a rarified plateau alongside My Funny Valentine, Someone to Watch Over Me, God Only Knows, Here, There, and Everywhere, and a few other like masterpieces (maybe I should propose a list!). It was written by Henri Mancini, with lyrics by the great Johnny Mercer, for Audrey Hepburn to sing in Breakfast at Tiffany’s – yup, that’s really her singing – its melody crafted specifically to suit the actress’s vocal range. It would seem incredible, if we hadn’t already encountered the phenomenon multiple times in the Songs of the Day series, that the song poured out of Mancini in a little less than half an hour, as if it had already been written and he just had to bring it to mind.
Mercer’s deeply affecting lyrics drew upon the emotions he’d experienced as a boy growing up in Savannah Georgia, and speak to that part of the human spirit that yearns to expand beyond limited horizons, to light out into the wider world and see wonderful things you’ve never even dreamed were out there, perhaps, with a little luck, finding love and companionship along the way. It’s more about personal growth than romance, and as much about friendship as finding the love of your life – “my huckleberry friend” isn’t a reference to Huck Finn, but to a childhood buddy with whom Mercer used to go picking huckleberries – portraying a soul that longs, positively aches, to experience something of the magic that just has to exist out there, maybe just around the bend, not far from the confines of the little locale that’s all you’ve ever known. There’s such a lot of world to see.
The story goes that after it’s initial screening, the President of Paramount Pictures declared Breakfast at Tiffany’s was too damned long, and he knew just what to do about that, announcing that among other things “the fucking song has to go”. It’s said that Mancini, there in the room with a select set of guests, was stunned, the colour draining out of his face, unable even to speak. Others involved with the film’s production objected, of course, but it was Hepburn herself who came to the rescue, telling the studio bigwigs that they were obviously crazy, and they’d excise the most beautiful moment of the movie over her dead body.
Moon River won all sorts of awards, Oscars, Grammys, and other gongs, and was a huge hit for crooner Andy Williams, mainly because somehow, it never occurred to anyone to release Hepburn’s touching performance as a single (they did release an instrumental version from the soundtrack album, but c’mon); if Paramount was going to cede the field, well, somebody was bound to take a song like this to the top. Many still consider Hepburn’s rendition the definitive version. The other night, though, the YouTube algorithm, having discerned, rather spookily, what sort of songs I seemed to like, fed me the attached version by Connie Talbot, a singer I’d never heard of, but who was apparently quite famous in the UK owing to her participation a few years ago in Britain’s Got Talent.
She nails it.
Watching it again in the wee hours today, she got me to crying all over again.
