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"Moonriver" (Mancini/Mercer) This song is only available on albums such as "World Of Morrissey" which don't include lyrics. They are transcribed here as they are heard, without permission.
MoonriverNotes: -In the extended version of the song (as heard on the "World Of Morrissey" album), the lyrics above are repeated completely. -The verse (2nd paragraph above) was modified by Morrissey. The lyrics in the original song were "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". Also, Morrissey changed the original "I'm crossing you in style" in the chorus to "I'll be crossing you in style".
Quotes Morrissey on Henry Mancini and Johnny Mercer's "Moon River": "A lot of the versions one knows are very cabaret-ish, if that's the word, which suits me fine. I'm fond of the Shirley Bassey version, of course, but to me the most familiar recording, the one I grew up with, was Frank Sinatra's which I thought was very sad. But then of course the song is very sad, though that tends to be overlooked in some of the more triumphant recordings of it. It's possible that most people look on it as a sweet, simple lyric and don't dwell upon the words, which are depressing really: 'Moon river... I'm crossing you in style someday'. The fulfilment promised in the song is always in the future, so it has this never-finding, ever-reaching feel. It's hard to sing only in the sense that you realise you're more familiar with it than you perhaps thought. And it's a song which our parents knew - it brings a previous generation to mind - which can tend to make you nervous." (Interview published in the 16 June 1994 issue of The Independent, so two days after Mancini's death).
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