wedding

Went to a friend's wedding yesterday.

The service and reception were lovely, her dress stunning, the food delicious, the company stimulating, the fireworks 'oooh' and 'aaah' worthy. A perfect wedding.

However, the last song (apparently now a traditional wedding-reception final song) was possibly the most inapppropriate song to play on such a date.

It seemed as if no-one else noticed.
Husband and I were the only ones not dancing to it.

Comments

[steve]

So is it a quiz? Do we have to guess what the final song was? I really have no idea, I'm out of touch with weddings these days. BTW, it's almost 2am, what a naughty boy I am being up so late! :-)

[mr mcmuffin]

I'm guessing it was Lou Reed, and his much misunderstood song. Why do people not actually listen to the lyrics of songs.

[Diane]

Hmmmm....there are sooo many songs that it could be. What was it??? I know what you mean, as I've been to events like that where the songs are played and you think "why on earth did they chose THAT song????" when you hear the lyrics. I guess they just loved the tune?!!!

[Kirsty]

I'm very surprised none of you guessed.

'Start spreading the news / I'm leaving today / I want to be a part of it...'

Does that help?

[hetty]

that's disgusting.

[mr mcmuffin]

New York, New York!

"These vagabond shoes/Are longing to stray/And make a brand new start of it"

Great song.

The Lou Reed song is Perfect Day. It is a bit like the Red Hot Chilli Peppers' song Under The Bridge. Lou is singing about a drug addled, suicidal, man convinced that he is getting what he deserves, and that is not a "perfect day". Listen to the song again, with the lyrics, and it will make you cry when he sings "You made me forget myself/I thought I was someone else/Someone good". Why do people insist on listening only the chorus of songs? By the way, we had Neil Young's Change Your Mind as our first dance song at our wedding, and that is about how love helped him not kill himself. But it is our song, for all sorts of reasons, all nice ones.

Oh, here are the lyrics to Perfect Day:

Just a perfect day,
Drink sangria in the park,
And then later, when it gets dark,
We go home.
Just a perfect day,
Feed animals in the zoo
Then later, a movie, too,
And then home.

Oh it’s such a perfect day,
I’m glad I spent it with you.
Oh such a perfect day,
You just keep me hanging on,
You just keep me hanging on.

Just a perfect day,
Problems all left alone,
Weekenders on our own.
It’s such fun.
Just a perfect day,
You made me forget myself.
I thought I was someone else,
Someone good.

Oh it’s such a perfect day,
I’m glad I spent it with you.
Oh such a perfect day,
You just keep me hanging on,
You just keep me hanging on.

You’re going to reap just what you sow,
You’re going to reap just what you sow,
You’re going to reap just what you sow,
You’re going to reap just what you sow...

Another great song!

[steve]

No, Hetty, it's just unfortunate.

[mr mcmuffin]

Ah, 11 September! Very clever, clever clogs.

[mr mcmuffin]

I am on a different wavelength completely! I was only thinking about the appropriateness of the lyrics, not the occasion. As terrible as it was, I don't think the events of 11 September should be an occasion for annual world mourning or memorial, except by those people who lost loved ones. Don't play songs about New York on 11 September, don't be ridiculous!

[Kirsty]

I'm not saying the world should come to a standstill because of something that happened in another country three years ago, or that no-one should play a song about New York on September 11th.
We were bothered by it, even if no-one else was.
I don't think anyone else there put the date and the song together in the same way as Husband and I did.

It would have been very easy for the DJ (who seemed to have all his songs on mp3!) to have played something else.

And no-one seemed to mind about musical appropriateness (or musical taste) - they played that Busted song about trashing a wedding.

[hetty]

steve,

maybe to you it was unfortunate. but to me (and my husband, another ex-New Yorker who was there, like me, for 9/11/01) it was disgusting. certainly not clever!!

[Loretta]

Very insensitive to say the least. I don't expect it to be a national day of mourning, but I do think it was a world-wide event. It was the signal that started the new age of terrorism world-wide. It woke up Americans to what was happening in other parts of the world and brought the fight to a world level.

And frankly, you don't have to be in New York to hear the bells tolling and hear the names being read, and see the family members doubled ove rin grief three years later.

[joanne]

It's just a song. Perhaps it means something to the couple (if so, why shouldn't they play it at their wedding), perhaps it means nothing at all. An unfortunate coincidence that it happened to be on September 11th, but there are plenty more "disgusting" things in the world than playing a piece of music written decades ago on a day that is not even all that relevant to many people. Is it disgusting for people born/married/whatever on 9/11 to want to celebrate without feeling guilty? I don't think so.

[steve]

Hetty, sorry but I don't see anything disgusting about playing a song with "New York" in the title on 9/11. Actually I was at a dinner party last night and the music was themed to travel, or at least to world locations, and well, do you realise how many songs mention New York? We heard about 3 of them at the dinner party last night (the Sinatra one that is the subject of this blog, Englishman In NY by Sting and Fairy Tale Of NY by The Pogues). I feel no regret or remorse that we heard these songs, and certainly no disgust. Where should it all end??

[Kirsty]

Steve, Hetty clearly feels one way, you feel another way and I'm somewhere in the middle.
I don't neccessarily agree that playing that song at the wedding was disgusting, but I did feel it was thoughtless and inappropriate, especially to dance to at a wedding on that day.
They probably chose to have that song at their wedding, and it's their wedding they can do what the hell they like. Lots of people danced to it and they clearly didn't give a shit. I did, so I didn't dance.

There are some days that are going to be forever associated with something. Feb 14 - valentines day. Dec 25th - Christmas day. Nov 5th - Bonfire night. October 31st - halloween. And even if 'celebrations' on these days were banned you'd always associate that day with that event.
Life goes on, but you can't help remembering the past.

[joanne]

What do you think of on December 7th?

Of course 9/11 is going to be (and should be) remembered for quite awhile, but I don't think it'll be an eternal "date" like Christmas or Valentine's Day for anyone other than those that were directly affected by it. It's still recent, that's all. 100, even 50, years from now, it will be nothing more than a distant memory for some and something only seen through the filter of television and photographs for others.

[Kirsty]

Well for my grandparents dates like 6th June and 8th May would have been unforgettable.
Doesn't stop people playing war games / war songs.

[trish]

why is a celebration of New York not a great song to play on 9/11? Is there something in the lyrics that would offend? I think that celebrating the city can be an appropriate way to remember 9/11 for those of us not personally touched by the events that day.

However, I do agree that it could be weird to realize that everyone else is dancing without realizing the significance. I stopped and thought on Saturday and wished we could return to that pre 9/11 world.

Loretta writes that

"It was the signal that started the new age of terrorism world-wide. It woke up Americans to what was happening in other parts of the world and brought the fight to a world level."

I think this is a very American-centric view. While this was terrorism on a very large scale, other countries have had to deal with terrorism for generations. As for bringing the fight to a world level, I think this has polarized the world into different camps, which I suspect may cause more trouble in the future.

It was an attack against America, and thus the anniversary will be more important to Americans. I suspect that there are countless other tragedies of similar proportion in the world that we don't honour because they're not our tragedies, we're not aware of them.

No one's grief is more valid than another's. I find it hard to distinguish between my sympathy for the victims of 9/11 and the civilian victims of the war in Iraq. They arouse the same feelings of utter sadness - because they are both tragedies.

[steve]

Well said.