Emmalee Rainbow wrote “I’ve Had Some Wine” in her Notes app on her 21st birthday in Las Vegas, surrounded by chaos and the massive empty desert just outside it. The juxtaposition stuck—Vegas as the place where everyone goes, longing for an experience that doesn’t exist, slot machines and neon lights promising transformation that never arrives. The song opens with exhaustion disguised as a question: “This can’t be all there is / As soon as I put my feet up / It’s time to go to work again.”
Understanding “I’ve Had Some Wine”
Rainbow describes herself as “a child in a grown-up body / A slot machine in a Vegas lobby,” which captures the specific terror of performing adulthood while feeling like you’re still waiting for the real thing to start. The chorus—”Hit me, hit me, hit me / I’m never gonna do it how you want me to”—borrows Vegas gambling language to talk about refusing expectations, but the desperation in that repetition suggests she’s not sure she has the willpower to follow through.
The track features Maxx Morando on drums and blends 80s melancholy with modern nostalgic indie rock, building toward what Rainbow calls “the momentum of the final scene of an epic blockbuster.” But the lyrics undercut that cinematic swell with brutal honesty about resentment that “stains everything I touch” and growing “immune to your bruise” through audience applause. The verses toggle between being “in our glory” with friends and band, then immediately confronting the wrinkles forming, the critical acclaim that never comes, the crowd getting bored and leaving like they have before.
Every version of glory collapses into “I want to come home to you,” revealing that all the performance—the stage, the sex, the ambition—is just elaborate avoidance of admitting you wanted something simpler that you can’t have anymore.
Enjoy this track? Check out Remy Smith’s “Short Ride Down” for another look at disposable culture.
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