The Wedding Song Playlist

Wedding Song Playlist



The Fiancee was talking about some songs she wanted to play at our wedding.
I should have just kept my mouth shut, but instead I reacted adversely to some of her some choices.
I don't even remember what they were now.  "I Will Always Love You" by Whitney Houston was one of them, and the other ones were similar in style and genre.

After I had shot down about 3 or 4 of her choices, she turned and said, "Fine.  You make the Wedding Song Playlist. It's your job now."

Realizing that I had just been given extra work to do, I tried to quickly reverse course.  "No, it's okay.  Whatever songs you like are fine.  I won't complain anymore.  I'm sorry."
But she was firm on this.  She would no longer choose the wedding songs.  It was my job now.

Despite my initial reluctance, it was actually kind of fun when I got into it.  After all, what could possibly be more self-indulgent then spending time going through the Internet and picking out all your favorite songs?

There were a couple obstacles, though.
First of all, I  had largely stopped listening to music about 10 years ago.
I mean, I still listen to music in the sense that music is all around us every day, and you can't not listen to it.  But I've stopped actively listening to music.  In my free listening time, I listen to audiobooks, podcasts, lectures on Youtube, etc.  (I think this is a natural part of growing  older--many of us stop being obsessed with pop music at a certain point in our lives.  Or am I wrong to generalize on this?)
So to a certain extent, I had trouble remembering what the favorite songs of my youth even where.  I had to spend some time jogging my memory, and remembering what songs I used to put on my playlists 10 years ago.  (I still have this nagging feeling that I'm forgetting some of the best songs).

Secondly, the Fiance was firm that this had to be a list of love songs, and not just a list of my favorite songs.  So anything like "Working Class Hero", "A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall" or "War" was out.

But also, even within love songs genre--have you ever noticed that all the most beautiful love songs are about heartbreak?  There were a number of times when I said to the Fiancee, "Okay, this is a really beautiful song, but he's actually singing about a girl who doesn't love him back." She would always respond, "Delete it."
I've got a list as long as my arm of songs I had to cut for this reason.  One example, "I Can't Stop Loving You," by Ray Charles. I really wanted to include it, but a close examination of the lyrics shows that he's actually singing the song to an ex-lover.  Likewise, "You've Really Got a Hold on Me" by The Beatles also got deleted because it was about a dysfunctional relationship.
I tell you, I've got a huge list of really beautiful love songs that had to be deleted because they were about some sort of dysfunctional relationship (--all the most beautiful songs are always about heartbreak).

On the other hand, songs like "You Really Got Me" by The Kinks were rejected by the Fiancee because they were a bit too hard rock, and didn't really fit the mood of the wedding.  (To be fair, she was absolutely right about this.  I kind of knew that in the back of my head before I even asked.)

What's left on this playlist is all the songs I did manage to come up with.
I'm kind of proud of it, in that stupid irrational way that everyone is proud of their own playlists?

(It is kind of stupid when you think about it?  Lots of people are proud of their playlists, but why?   Do we think that we somehow get credit for the songs just because we put them on a list?)

Anyway... for whatever it's worth...