Moon River
by Henry Mancini, arranged by Holden Mui
Program notes for Holden’s arrangement of Moon River. More to come later, for other works. See details about our composition recital and RSVP here.
Henry Mancini composed the song Moon River for the soundtrack of the movie Breakfast at Tiffany’s. His lyricist Johnny Mercer drafted a few options for the tune, including the following:
I’m Holly / Like I want to be / Like Holly on a tree / back home
Just plain Holly / With no dolly / No mama, no papa / wherever I roam
There’s an almost tortured quality to the singer’s continued insistence on the self. I’m Holly, like I want to be. Just plain Holly. With no dolly, no mama, no papa. Early on, the movie’s female lead Holly Golightly, played by Audrey Hepburn, introduces us to a cat she lives with: “Poor old cat. [...] Poor slob without a name. The way I look at it, I don’t have the right to give him one. We don’t belong to each other.” Later, in a farewell scene with her former husband Doc from whom she ran away, we learn she gave herself the name Holly: “Please understand. I love you, but I’m just not Lula Mae anymore.” So the lyrics fit Breakfast at Tiffany’s, and they fit Holly. Mancini thought so too.
Mercer wasn’t satisfied, though, for which the world ought to be immensely grateful. The final version is as follows:
Moon River / wider than a mile / I'm crossing you in style / someday
Oh, dream maker / You heart breaker / Wherever you're going / I'm going 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 / Waiting 'round the bend / My huckleberry friend
Moon River / and me
The word capture can mean both describe and trap. So Mercer’s earlier draft captures Holly. It captures her obsession with names and autonomy and freedom; it captures her lack of family ties and her propensity to “roam.” But Mercer’s earlier draft also captures Holly, in that it freezes her in her present; it captures Holly, with its facts and concreteness and the way in which those limit the song.
Consider the following lyrics from the final version’s first two phrases—wider than a mile, someday, wherever you’re going. They evoke possibility. Whatever the moon river is, it might be as wide as the imagination stretches. The narrator might cross it decades from now. It could go anywhere. To describe Holly too well would be to trap Holly, such that the listener imagines “just” a woman, just plain Holly, instead of the freedom and possibility she craves. So to capture Holly, the song must not capture Holly. Mercer relinquishes the facts, no mama, no papa; relinquishes the spelling-out of her personality, like I want to be; relinquishes even her name. He gives us something surreal, something flighty, something aspirational, and in this way he captures her far better than anything grounded and concrete and true ever could.
Of course, that is why we have music—to capture what, by nature, cannot be captured otherwise.
Mancini thought that despite all the great vocalists who covered Moon River, Hepburn understood it best. In her rendition, listen for the rising intervals between moon and river; I’m and crossing; dream and maker; and so on. Imagine, as she lingers on moon, I’m, and dream, that she builds up energy, courage; that she wants to reach for something higher. Listen for how each effort results in a thin, wispy high note that slips back down afterward. What is aspirational is somehow less material. (It is worth noting that the fullest, most concrete of those high notes occurs on heart breaker.) On wherever you’re going, the melody moves more measuredly—an arpeggio rather than a single interval—yet still must recede. But on after the same rainbow’s end, Hepburn takes a breath after that high note on same, the one she hits on going, then goes one higher. That rainbow’s end is aspirational, lyrically and melodically.
Holden’s arrangement does not feature the voice. But the piano is a vehicle for other dimensions of expression. His Moon River consists of three iterations of the melody—each with different harmonies, accompaniments, and characters, set in different registers. Between the second and third is an interlude. These iterations correspond to scenes from Breakfast at Tiffany’s.
First, the melody appears in sparkling octaves over ostinato triplets. This section corresponds to the movie’s opening. Holly Golightly exits a cab and walks by Tiffany’s, a jewelry store she loves, which she later says feels like a place where “nothing very bad could happen to you.” So those octaves—simple, open, airy—have a childlike innocence to them. As the second verse begins, we move down a register, and the accompaniment increases in complexity: growing up, as it were.
After a key change comes the second iteration of the melody, which corresponds to the scene where the movie’s male lead Paul Varjak watches Holly sing Moon River as she sits on her windowsill. So this iteration is like the human voice: lower, intimate, more free, in a single line rather than octaves. In the scene, the second verse is accompanied by the orchestra. Appropriate, given the lyrics—two drifters, we’re after—and how they compare to the I’s and you’s of the first verse. As such, in Holden’s arrangement, at two drifters the music becomes fuller, with thirds and octaves and inner voices.
Then comes a surreal interlude. A four-note motif emerges, initially alone. We hear it again, slightly higher. Then again, even higher, and it begins to interrupt itself. After a brief peak, the music winds down, until a moment of stillness.
All those someday’s, those wherever’s, those aspirations—they culminate in the final iteration of the melody, a brilliant orchestral transcription. In the corresponding scene of the movie, the closing, Paul tells Holly that her fear of being caged is itself a cage. “I’m in love with you,” he says, as she insists on fleeing to Brazil. “People do belong to each other, because that’s the only chance anybody’s got for real happiness.” Gone are the innocence of the opening, the ever-so-vocal freedom of the second iteration, the surrealism of the interlude; in their place comes real happiness, brimming with harmony, grounded by deep bass notes and arpeggios that traverse the keyboard.
Moon River is a song of contradictions. It evokes self-assuredness and uncertainty; childlike wonder and the wistfulness of old age. It is infinitely far and yet tantalizingly close—the moon and its reflection in the water. So it seems beautiful and appropriate to end with this last iteration and its corresponding dialogue, which declare not someday, not wherever, but rather I love you, here and now.