The Nights of Wine and Roses

so we down our drinks in a funnel with friends and we burn our plants right down to the end

So I always thought this title was funny and then last night, by random circumstances I was researching the history of this building in the city where I live. Well I ended up down the Wikipedia wormhole and ended up on the Alcoholics Anonymous page (crazy how some topics are linked). Under the "in the media" there was a movie called "Days of Wine and Roses" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Days_of_Wine_and_Roses_(film). The movie is apparently a well-respected film about a couple devastated by serious alcoholism. Given the similarities in titles between the film and the Japandroids song I thought alcoholism might be an underlying theme in all of these. At first glance the "Days of Wine and Roses" appear to be the good times before they succumbed to alcoholism. Japandriods seem to be yelling that "fuck it, lets do it while we can". Maybe hoping they don't get pulled in as well. Also, just by chance I saw their music video for "The House that Heaven Built" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TRVCtbfuDqw) . If you watch it the video from 3:00 to 3:04 you can see Brian King (guitar, vocals) reading a book called "Alcoholism and drinking in Twentieth-Century Literature". I think booze consumption seems to be something on their minds quite a lot.

Anyways, just wanted to share those observations.

Great song, from a spectacular album. Wow. Japandroids. Great stuff.

The phrase "wine and roses" comes from the poem Vitae Summa Brevis Spem Nos Vetat Incohare Longam by Ernest Dowson ("They are not long, the days of wine and roses \ Out of a misty dream \ Our path emerges for a while, then closes \ Within a dream"). Although slowgoins might be right that it is used here as a reference to the movie The Days of Wine and Roses. In any event, both the poem and the theme song from the movie are about how life is a very brief event and it should be enjoyed while it lasts.

We don't cry for those nights to arrive We yell like hell to the heavens

The opening couplet makes it sound like they've taken the party life a few years past its prime (also dealt with elsewhere on the album, like "younger us."). If you are in your 30s and still going for it, you might question why you're still doing it until you hit that perfect night of laughs and spills with good friends - then the answer is "Of course we still are."

As a kid, partying is really about discovery and seeking new feelings, but we get older maybe it's about hanging on or going back there. Take it as a positive or a negative thing, but the song feels like if you can get away with it, it's worth it.