Weddings

I don't know about you , but I have been to a lot of weddings, a lot of weddings. Many have been good, some have been dull, there was a fight at one. I like weddings in so much as they are a party. Parties are good, parties are fun, parties have music. This has always left me in a bit of a fluster. As you know I am pretty keen on music. As you also know, most people like music, but aren't perhaps as much of a hipster (geek) about it as I, and I dare say you!

I tend to spend a lot of time at the wedding listening to reasonable music  that everyone likes. That is fine, it is not my big day and I perfectly understand that it is much more important that 95% of people have fun and enjoy the music and the party than it is that I enjoy the music selection. There have been some exceptions, a great friend played California girls by the Beach Boys as she walked out of the church. cool. I will put in a quick rant here. I am fairly anti religion. Of all sorts but I do quite like choir music. If you ignore the whole exulting the lord rubbish, the voice as a multi faceted instrument used in unison is pretty impressive.

I have often wondered about the first song. You know, the one they are supposed to dance to as their first song as a married couple. I have thought that this would be a good song.

Maybe the beginning , with the whole thing about having a girl and then not having a girl is not so appropriate. but I think it is a very cool song. I like the way the song is about change and then has that great piano coming in. That said it is perhaps not the most uplifting song to start a party with. Should it be though? Should you start a wedding with a very happy upbeat song? Well you certainly shouldn't start it with this

My point rather is that it is a momentous occasion in the life of the happy couple. They have decide to make a public commitment in front of friends and family. I do not think that it should be a frivolous song as far as it it goes. I am sorry but a lot of people get this wrong. I know that it supposed to be a song that represents something special to the couple. It is often thought to be the first song they fell in love to or some such romantic nonsense. I wrote before about The Beach Boys and Wouldn't it be Nice. As I also said, that is a song about adultery and not actually about the innocence of love. I think that people need to keep that in mind and do some research about the song they are going to play. It can mean something different than it actually appears to.

As with so much of our modern lives, we take so much of our queue from the world of entertainment. This song was at the beginning of Shrek 2. It was used to show that the main characters were falling in love and happy.

It is a good song, it gets across the idea of the happiness but also the confusion of the whole thing. There is an exuberance to it that I find appealing. I think it is interesting that a person who has written some incredibly dark songs about isolation and the loneliness of modern life was also able to write a song that shows all of the above qualities. Perhaps it takes someone who has experienced all of the downsides to appreciate the upside properly.

I will say though that many of the bands whom I like listening to the most have not tackled this subject. It doesn't fit in with the things they like to write about, but it is interesting. There are very few songs about falling in love by the prog world. Metal never touches on it. The electronic world certainly has the exuberance but doesn't ever fall into sentimentality of the kind that we are talking about here. Actually , the more I think about it, the more I am starting to struggle to find a musical world outside of pop that explores the subject. This is odd no? So much of music is about expressing emotions and getting across a message of some sort, that it seems odd that love songs are almost the exclusive property of pop. Think about it, you can name hundreds of songs about angst, about being alone, about people not understanding. But think of some really good songs about falling in love. Harder than you thought right?

I am not talking about Celine Dion, or Whitney Houston love songs. I am talking about songs that actually get away from the shmaltz and purvey something that you would like to play at a celebration of your relationship.

Maybe you should play this.

What do you think? What should my friends be playing this afternoon?