Two More Bottles of Wine

The rhythm here is what announces this song before a word is sung: a shuffling, almost swaggering groove that belongs in the back room of a bar with sawdust on the floor and a jukebox in the corner. Emmylou Harris recorded this Delbert McClinton song with an energy that suggests she's having a genuinely good time, and that joy is somewhat unusual in her catalog — which makes it more striking for its rarity. The production from Pieces of her late-1970s period has a looseness to it, a live-in-the-room quality that suits a lyric about making peace with imperfect circumstances. The song is about being stranded somewhere you didn't plan to be, broke and tired, and deciding that two more bottles of wine and the remaining hours of the night are enough to constitute a kind of happiness. It's a philosophy of getting by that is neither self-pitying nor falsely optimistic — just pragmatic about where joy can be found when better options aren't available. Harris's voice, usually reserved for more delicate material, shows a different side here: slightly rough-edged, committed to the groove, able to convey the loosening that comes after the third drink. The steel guitar and fiddle are present but playing in service of the rhythm rather than the feeling, which is exactly right. Play this when the evening has gone sideways in a way you've decided to enjoy rather than resist.