Wine, women and song

For the waltz written by Johann Strauss, see Wein, Weib und Gesang.

"Who does not Love Wine Wife & Song will be a Fool for his Lifelong!"

The cliché "wine, women, and song" is a rhetorical figure of a triad or hendiatris. It describes a lifestyle or set of behaviors which are indulgent or pleasure-seeking. Similar tripartite mottoes have existed for a long time in many languages, for example:

• Bengali/Hindi/Sanskrit – "Sur, Sura, Sundari" (music, wine and woman)
• Bulgarian – "Пиене, ядене и някоя сгодна женица" (drink, food and a good woman)
• Chinese – "葡萄酒, 美女,和音乐" (wine, women and song)
• Czech – "Víno, ženy a zpěv" (wine, women and song)
• Danish – "Vin, kvinder og sang" (wine, women and song)
• Finnish – "Viini, laulu ja naiset" (wine, song, and women)
• German – "Wein, Weib und Gesang" (wine, woman and singing)
• Italian – "Bacco, tabacco e Venere" (Bacchus, tobacco and Venus)
• Persian – "Kabab, Sharab va Shabab" (meat, wine and youth)
• Norwegian – "Piker, vin og sang" (women, wine and song)
• Polish – "Wino, kobiety i śpiew" (wine, women and song)
• Swedish – "Vin, kvinnor och sång" (wine, women and song)
• Spain – "Naipes, Mujeres y Vino, Mal Camino" (cards, women and wine, bad ways)
• Portuguese – "Putas e vinho verde" (whores and green wine)
• African American Vernacular English – "forties and shorties" (forties referring to 40 ounce beer, and shorties referring to women. Also sometimes called "40s, blunts, and hoes")

"Sex, drugs and rock and roll" is a modern variation of it. The terms correspond to wine, women and song with edgier and updated vices. The term was popularised by the hippies, and composed by Ian Dury in his 1977 song of the same name.

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

The following "tetrad" (using four concepts rather than three) predates all of the above:

• Persian "دویار زیرک و از باده کهن دو منی فراغتی و کتابی و گوشه چمنی" a popular rubaiyyat (quatrain) by Omar Khayyám (1048–1131):

"Two sweethearts,

Two flasks of old wine,

A book of verse

And a cosy corner in the garden."

—Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, Quatrain xii.

The phrase may have also originated with the following couplet:

• "Who does not love wine, women and song / Remains a fool his whole life long." Variations on this quote have been attributed to Martin Luther, although Bartlett's Familiar Quotations names Johann Heinrich Voss (1751–1826) as a more likely source.

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 (never sung) second verse of Das Lied der Deutschen, the third verse of which is the German national anthem.

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.

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."

In the Poison song Nothin' But A Good Time, the lyrics include "They say I spend my money on women and wine."

External links

• American Musical Trio Wine, Women & Song