Elton John - Moon River

Moon River is a decades old song that has became a classic because of
its music that is pleasant to the ears and its short but meaningful
lyrics.  The song’s message is that of being not just a dreamer but
chasing and acting towards the realization of that dream.  Also, it
tackles about the role friends take in this quest.


The imagery the song presents to the listeners a clear visualization
of the persona gazing and admiring the wide river as he contemplates on
his thoughts about his dreams.  The river is described as ‘wider than a
mile’; this implies that he knows that the journey to success is a long
and difficult one.  The second stanza/verse on the other hand, lets us
have an idea of what running through the mind of the persona.  Looking
beyond the literal images this stanza tells us, it seems that the
personified being of the river accompanies the persona in his pursuit of
achieving his dreams and in the end succeeding.  The prominent feelings
that the song conveys are hopefulness and optimism.


Several accounts tells that the Moon River is a real river that is
close to heart of the lyricist Johnny Mercer and, it seems that he
personified the river and used it as a character in the song. 
Listeners (or readers) of the song’s lyrics will realize that the ‘dream
maker’ and ‘heartbreaker’ refers to the river, thus, giving it the
ability to dream and break a heart.  The lyric also says of ‘two
drifters’, these drifters are the persona and the Moon River itself. 
This means that he hopes that a friend will be present as he pursues his
dreams.  This song used the figure of speech apostrophe as the song is
basically the persona communicating to the Moon River as if they were
having a conversation.


Looking at the rest of the lyrics, it used several other figures of
speech aside from personification and apostrophe.  For example, ‘the rainbow’s end’
can be a metonymy to goals or dreams that a person would want to
achieve.  There are also legends about leprechauns hiding their pot of
gold on the rainbow’s end so, this is already an allusion to a legend
and changes the comparison to something similar to a reward.  Another
allusion is in the mention of ‘Huckleberry friend’ which most probably is alluded to Mark Twain’s adventurous character of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
novels.  The friend could be another person who is there as he faces
the world head on.  He described the river as both ‘dream maker’ and
‘heartbreaker’ which gives us the impression that the persona sees the
possibility of failing to achieve his dreams but he knows that when this
happens his friend will pick him up and guide him back to start anew.
Paradox is also present in the song.  In “I’m crossing you in style
someday” and “Wherever you’re going I’m going your way”, the you
refers to the same object and yet the former connotes that he wants to
surpass the river’s (which in turn, symbolizes the friend he hopes for)
achievements but the latter says that he is going to follow his lead. 
This just means that a friend can be an inspiration for a person to
succeed and in the future, to inspire other people, too.


The song is really about friendship.  It tells us the importance and
joy of having friends who accompanies you not just when you down and sad
but all throughout your lives.  It acquaints us with the thought that
friends are valuable part of a person’s life.