Songfacts®:

• This was the last track Al wrote for the album. Normally, he said, his long songs have been somewhat serious, and he had never attempted to write a long humorous one before. He sat down at the piano and it virtually wrote itself adding, "I didn't know where the story was going."
• "The Night That The Band Got The Wine" is about a birthday party that doesn't go according to plan. An American billionaire who has reached the big 5-0 decides to celebrate in style on the 17th floor of a prestigious hotel with silver service, a band, and all the trimmings, but there is an earthquake, and nobody turns up, so he is left sitting alone with the waiters and the musicians.
• Al has known a lot of musicians who've played covers and standards in restaurants and places where everyone ignores them; musicians hate this, he says, but it brings in the money. The band come in arguing among themselves as usual, and play until eight o'clock at which time the host decides enough is enough, tells them to stop and plies them with wine. Afterwards they go back to their instruments and play the sort of music they like to play while the billionaire dances by himself before passing out on the ballroom floor. Afterwards, both the band and the host experience their own revealed truths. They decide to play the kind of music they like in future while he decides that all the so-called friends who couldn't bother to turn up for his party are not worth the candle, so he hops onto a plane and disappears to some exotic island. >>

  Suggestion credit:
  Alexander Baron - London, England, for above 3