Our Wedding Music List

Today is the first anniversary of our marriage. I thought I'd take the opportunity to show with you the list my husband diligently worked on for months before the big day. We used this list to create a CD that was played during the dinner hour. I have to admit that I heard none of these songs at that time because I was too busy eating. However, when we left in the car to head to the hotel after the reception, the boy popped in this CD and it was a special moment.

1) "Nothing Matters When We're Dancing" by The Magnetic Fields
This was, of course, the song we danced our first dance to. After that dance, I found myself off in the corner, slugging down water like a camel at an oasis, when BB's aunt came up to me and quizzed me on the song. Who sings it? How did we find it? Did we pick it on purpose to make her cry? Even BB's father told us we did right by picking that song.

We still regularly dance around the apartment to this song.

2) "Old-Fashioned Love" by Willie Nelson
BB tried really hard to make the set list so that it would appeal to lots of people. This remake does that in a real way. The song is definitely old-fashioned enough so that BB's grandma loved it, but it appealed to even me because, you know, it's Willie Nelson!!

3) "You Got to Me" by Neil Diamond
I think the boy has a man crush on Neil Diamond.

4) "No One Needs to Know" by Shania Twain
When we first got engaged, I used to crank this up really loudly in my truck while I went to school. I feel like there's a bit of a dearth of good songs for newly engaged women - there's a feeling of freedom, like anything's possible, that I've never felt at any other time in my life. Sure, regular love songs get to the love you feel, but there's something different. I feel like this song really captures it and I made the boy listen to this song dozens of times before he put together this list.

5) "Breathless" by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
I unexpectedly stopped by BB's apartment once when we were sort of a newly dating couple. He answered the door wearing ripped jeans, a bandanna wrapped around his head, and holding a mop. This song was blaring from the speakers. He was cleaning his apartment to this song. It was. . . incredibly adorable.

For the record, he's never mopped the floor in our apartment here!

6) "I'm on my Way" by The Proclaimers
They're so very Scottish. I can't help but try and mimic their accents with this one. It's never flattering for them or for me.

7) "Dream, Dream, Dream" by The Everly Brothers
When I was in sixth grade, if we were a well behaved class during the week, our teacher would reward us with an hour of music on Friday afternoons. He'd bust out his guitar, pass out sheets of paper with lyrics on them, and we'd sing. Mostly we sang songs from the 60s, including this one. I knew these lyrics before I understood what they were about.

8) "Two of Us" by Aimee Mann and Michael Penn (I think)
This is a remake of a Beatles song and I'm pretty sure those are the artists singing it. I'll double check with the boy when he gets home. Oh, did I not mention that my husband is working all day today ON OUR ANNIVERSARY? Crazy. Actually, it's okay. We both have tomorrow off.

9) "There She Goes" by The La's
Watching the move So I Married An Axe Murderer for the one hundredth time, the boy mentioned to me that this song is really about heroin. So there you go. We put a song about drugs on our dinner music for the enjoyment of our wedding guests.

10) "Baby I Love You" by Bonnie Raitt and B. B. King
Bonnie Raitt and I have a close relationship. B. B. King and I less so. It's a great song. The boy made use of a lot of duets on this playlist. This is one of the best, I think.

11) "Hesitating Beauty" by Billy Bragg and Wilco
This song is just pretty. Surprisingly pretty because I would think that a combination of Bragg and Wilco would be a giant noisy mess, but no, they created this sweet, lovely song. I guess you shouldn't always judge a book by its obnoxiously loud cover.

12) "It's Oh So Quiet" by Bjork
I hate this song. I dislike Bjork and she spends a good portion of this song screeching and screaming and it inevitably makes me cringe. I think that the boy put this on the CD just to see if I'd actually kick him during our wedding day.

13) "A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square" by Mel Torme (?)
It turns out I have to check the artists for a bunch of these. Here I was thinking I knew all these songs. I must have gotten too cocky after listening to this CD dozens and dozens of songs.

14) "Cool Love" by Chris Isaak
Christ Isaak is not one of my favorite artists, but I like that the boy picked this song over the more obvious "Wicked Games" choice. P.S. Chris Isaak is really hot. It's too bad his voice is not my favorite.

15) "Callin' Baton Rouge" by Garth Brooks
The boy allows me to listen to relatively few Garth songs. He gets really irritated with the "over produced obnoxious vocal twists." That's a direct quote. My husband doesn't feel the Garth love I do. Anyway, he does like this song. Apparently the combo of the fiddles and Garth singing too quickly to be able to do vocal aerobics works for him.

16) "Galway Girl" by Steve Earle
Early on in our relationship, the boy tried to sway me to his musical side by making me mixed CDs (awwww). This song was on the first one he ever made for me. I love it. He loves it. I desperately wish I had black hair and blue eyes, so the boy could sing this song to me.

17) "I Can" by Golden Smog
I'm not sure why this song is on the list. It's a bit of an anomaly in that it's incredibly boring. And has a swear in it!! Dude, Grandma was listening to it!!

18) "Whisper your Name" by Harry Connick, Jr. (?)
I have to be wrong about the artist on this one. I can't imagine the boy would actually listen to Harry Connick, Jr. Do you know how much mocking the boy did of Connick during Hope Floats? It's true, you know. When we first dated, BB would watch movies like that with me. Now, he just rolls his eyes and tells me to watch chick flicks when he's at work. The romance is gone, my friends. Ha.

19) "I'm the One" by Gary Allan
Just like the boy tried to get me to listen to his music when we first started dating, I tried to get him to listen to my music. The only artists I really converted him to were Gary Allan and Brad Paisley. This song is perfect. Classic country. So, if you don't like country, you won't like this song, but I'm pretty sure it was put on the list to make me happy. And it does.

20) "Queen of Hearts" by Juice Newton
I got a Juice Newton CD from the boy for my birthday one year. Because I can sing Angel of the Morning word for word like nobody's business. Go Juice!!

21) "Love is Strange" by Mickey and Sylvia
An homage to my nonstop Dirty Dancing viewing? For a brief period in my life, this movie was on in the background of my life for practically every waking minute I was by myself. I'll never know whythe song actually made the list, but I can't help but picture Patrick Swayze whenever I hear it.

22) "I'm a Believer" by Neil Diamond
Diamond is the only artist to get two songs on the list. I wonder what that says about my husband?

23) "She's an Angel" by They Might Be Giants
A friend recommended the documentary about They Might Be Giants to me because of my well-documented Ira Glass love. Along the way, the boy and I fell in love with TMBG. A playlist rarely gets created in our household that doesn't include one of these songs.

24) "Handle with Care" by Traveling Wilburys
I think he put this on the list because I requested a Tom Petty song. This is a bit of a stretch in the defintion of "Tom Petty song."

25) "The Game of Love" by Wayne Fontana and the Mindbenders
Hmmmm...it's not the most romantic song in the world, but I think that the boy imagined dinner wouldn't last long enough to get this far through the list.

If you've made it this far, you are a glutton for punishment and someone who knows nothing about music writing about it!