Kisses Sweeter than Wine (song)

"Kisses Sweeter than Wine" is a popular love song written by The Weavers in 1950. The song was a hit for Jimmie Rodgers in 1957 and Frankie Vaughan in 1958.

The song was first recorded by The Weavers, who released the song as a Decca single in 1951, as Decca 9-27670. The recording by The Weavers reached #19 on the Billboard chart and #20 on the Cashbox chart in 1951.

In his 1993 book Where Have All the Flowers Gone, Pete Seeger described the long genesis of this song. Apparently the folk musician Lead Belly heard Irish performer Sam Kennedy in Greenwich Village singing the traditional Irish song "Drimmin Down" aka "Drimmen Dow", about a farmer and his dead cow. (The song, in fact, is called "An droimfhionn donn dilís" ("The whitebacked brown faithful cow/calf"). It is of the type categorized as "aisling" (dream) where the country of Ireland is given form. Most times the form is that of a comely young woman but here it is the faithful handsome cow.) Lead Belly adapted the tune for his own farmer/cow song "If It Wasn't for Dicky", which he first recorded in 1937. Lead Belly did not like the lack of rhythm, which had been a part of many free-flowing Irish songs, so he made the piece more rhythmic, playing the chorus with a twelve-string guitar.

Seeger liked Lead Belly's version of the tune, and his chords as well. In 1950, the quartet The Weavers, which Seeger belonged to, had made a hit version of Lead Belly's "Goodnight, Irene", and they were looking for new material. Seeger and Lee Hays wrote new lyrics (Hays wrote all new verses, Seeger re-wrote Lead Belly's chorus), turning "If It Wasn't for Dicky" into a love song. "Kisses Sweeter Than Wine" was published in 1951 and recorded by The Weavers on June 12, 1951 in New York City for Decca Records (catalog number 27670), reaching #19 on the US Hit Parade.

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