My Wife Is Ahead of Her Time
As "Stand By Me" is now teed-up to become the #1 wedding song in the English-speaking world, at least for a time, my wife actually chose it for our wedding almost 30 years ago. It is really one of the great songs, and should be ranked well higher than the 122nd place Rolling Stone Magazine gave it. I didn't watch the royal wedding this morning but my breakfast was interrupted by my wife screaming at me to "come see this" as "Stand by Me" was sung.
Postscript: I remember years ago the Police's "Every Breath You Take" dominated weddings for a while. At one point Sting did an interview where he told everyone -- I will paraphrase but I think this is close -- "stop playing that song at your weddings. Have you listened to the lyrics? It is a super-creepy song about stalking." I would add a big ditto to this for everyone in the 90's that was using at their weddings the Dolly Parton / Whitney Houston tune "I'll Always Love You," which is actually a break-up song.
Vangel:
Etta James still rules. At Last and A Sunday Kind of Love are both wonderful.
May 19, 2018, 4:57 pmherdgadfly:
Unfortunately, the royal couple didn't have Ben E King.
May 19, 2018, 8:46 pmLowcountryJoe:
Something you wrote in your blog entry about Uber: "People don't always seem to have a good grasp..." Just make it a full-stop with period.
May 19, 2018, 9:14 pmcc:
For a while, people were playing "Just Haven't Met You Yet" which is a different kind of creepy: if you haven't met the love of your life yet, who is this person you are marrying?
May 20, 2018, 6:42 amIke Pigott:
My father once performed a wedding where the couple insisted upon "Bridge Over Troubled Water."
May 20, 2018, 7:55 amSwami:
My favorite wedding song is Tina Turner's "What’s Love Got To Do With It"
May 20, 2018, 9:47 amSamWah:
I don't recall a wedding song in either of mine, some 10 and 30 years ago. But then, I am old, and my memory isn't what it never was...
May 20, 2018, 11:16 amPeabody:
Reminds me of Eve 6's "Here's to the Night", which is a common graduation and prom song. It is very clearly about a one night stand. Which actually does perhaps fit with prom, but not in the way nearly everyone thinks.
May 20, 2018, 11:18 amAtlantaDude:
I went to a wedding in the late 1980s post-Top-Gun era and the song was "You've Lost that Loving Feeling".
May 21, 2018, 4:35 ammarco73:
A better one would have been "Danger Zone."
May 21, 2018, 7:01 amMaximum Liberty:
"my wife actually chose it for our wedding almost 30 years ago"
Huh. Same here. 29 years this year.
May 21, 2018, 7:34 amAnon:
I wanted the Michael Hurly song "You're going to look like a monkey when you get old" but my bride vetoed it. It's amazing 40 years later how prescient it was.
May 21, 2018, 8:46 amBill Setser:
A friend was all set to use Pink Floyd’s “Mother” for his groom’s dance with his mom. I told him he’d better listen to the lyrics more closely, because she surely would, and would kick his ass.
May 21, 2018, 2:39 pmBill Setser:
Battleship Chains by the Georgia Satellites is a good song for weddings. ?
May 21, 2018, 2:42 pmhcunn:
Sting had a remarkably sweet voice in "Every Breath", but he is right-- the lyrics are creepy.
May 24, 2018, 8:36 pmMichael Wright:
A musician buddy years ago used to play at weddings. At one the bride insisted on "Yesterday".
"Yesterday, all my troubles seemed so far away
Now it looks as though they're here to stay
Oh, I believe in yesterday
Suddenly I'm not half the man I used to be
There's a shadow hanging over me
Oh, yesterday came suddenly
Why she had to go
I don't know, she wouldn't say
I said something wrong
Now I long for yesterday
Yesterday love was such an easy game to play
May 31, 2018, 2:37 pmNow I need a place to hide away"