On Songs, and When They Should or Shouldn’t Matter
What would a wedding be without music? Certainly, It would be much less entertaining. Both for you and the people who’ve come to watch it. And most people think of making a playlist this way: that what you’re doing is basically taking someone else’s words, someone else’s tune, and making it your own. Telling your own story. It isn’t as simple as all that, but it’s not too far off the mark either. And here’s the thing: it doesn’t always have to.
To start with, no song can take all your experiences, all the time, the love, and maybe even the heartbreak, and turn into a single work. It’s probably near impossible even had you made it yourself. Even the best songs—the ones that closely resemble what you want to say with them—will likely have a line or two that don’t fit anywhere. No place at all.
So what you do is you take the entire celebration, break it into pieces, and slip your favorites in them. Play what you like. Take all the songs that make you happy, the ones that make you feel alive, the ones that remind you of how good things are. Or how good things are now after all that’s happened in the past. Play the ones that make you remember, and anything else doesn’t have to matter. Their words will never be your words. Their tune will never be your tune. But your day will always be yours. The best songs are the ones that mean something to you, the ones you grew up with, have memories of, fallen in love to. And it’s a long list, of course. It has to be. Because these are the ones you’ll be playing all your life.
And while we’re here, here’s a list of our favorites: