Posted 1/12/2022 1:58 PM (GMT -5)
Moon River
Lyrics
Moon river, wider than a mile
I'm crossing you in style some day
Oh, dream maker, you heart breaker
Wherever you're goin', I'm goin' your way
Two drifters, off to see the world
There's such a lot of world to see
We're after the same rainbow's end
Waitin' 'round the bend
My huckleberry friend
Moon river and me
Hear it on: youtube.com
Source: Musixmatch
It's a simple song—only ten lines long—but the soaring melody and romantic lyrics provided a dreamy soundtrack for the 1961 film adaptation of the Truman Capote classic, Breakfast at Tiffany's. "Moon River" went on to win an Academy Award for Best Original Song and two Grammys, for Record of the Year and Song of the Year. And of course, it's been covered (re-sung by others) thousands of times by Andy Williams, Frank Sinatra, Judy Garland, and Aretha Franklin, etc.
But how did the enchanting song, written by Henry Mancini (music) and Johnny Mercer (lyrics) and performed by Audrey Hepburn as Holly Golightly, come to be? Mancini took about a month to write the first three notes, and the rest came to him within a half hour after that. (countryliving.com)
(Mancini was able to create a tune specifically for Hepburn's limited range by watching her performance in Funny Face; he studied the script for Holly’s character in Moon River, and duplicated in music the character’s current mood (she was “feeling blue” Southern Living says) as she was about to sing the tune that he had to first compose. Johnny Mercer then had to duplicate in words the music and the script’s Holly character and her romantic situation.)
It's a funny song for a New York socialite to choose, but perfectly sums up the public party girl who, in her quieter moments, is a small-town sweetheart. (southernliving.com)
As to what a “Moon River” is, it’s similar to ”Blue River,”’ the original title when Mercer learned that “Blue River” had already been taken. It is a mystic somber transport to a romantic venture is a guess.
An instrumental version is played over the film's opening titles, the second version is when Hepburn sings the song, while the third version is when the music-only comes up near the conclusion as Holly and her boyfriend ("Fred" (George Peppard) are looking for Holly’s lost cat in the rain and find it among boxes in an alley. (Wikipedia). The emotions go thru the roof. Showing “music is what feelings sound like.”