Songs that were obviously written to be wedding songs

Cafe Society
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One of the reasons Journey gets the love 'em / hate 'em reviews is that they were formed around Neal Schon to be a rock group but seem to have made most of their pop chart hits with ballads and then pop radio just overplays the top 40 to death, until a song that seemed nice when it came out tends to grate on the nerves after the 4th week of incessant replays.

Open Arms (Escape)
When You Love a Woman (Trial By Fire)
All the Things (Arrival)
Loved By You (Arrival)
Kiss Me Softhly (Arrival)
With Your Love (Arrival)

Most of these are Jonathan Cain (keyboardist) compositions, with *Open Arms *and *With Your Love *being explicitly wedding-oriented songs. *Open Arms is notable because Steve Perry recalled that day at the studio as, "I was starting to feel sick and just wanted to get it over with and go home." and doesn’t that just characterize a wedding perfectly! :smiley: With Your Love appears to have been written with Cain’s new wife – perhaps it was their joint vows?

–G
*To be fair, he said he was coming down with a cold, not morning sickness.

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And then there’s the flip side - a song that really wasn’t meant to be played at a wedding, but… well, I’ll let Ray Wylie Hubbard tell the story, he’s so much better at it than me. At about the 31:00 mark of this full show:

The whole show is great, but the intro to this song is pretty damned funny.
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The Stones’ “You Can’t Always Get What You Want.”

Mark Knopfler and Waylon Jenning’s cover of Buddy Holly’s “Learning The Game”

And maybe “Storybook Love” from The Princess Bride.

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"Aqualung”?

No?

How about “There Is Love (The Wedding Song)”?

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I’ve already informed the Daughter that it’s Stevie Ray’s “Pride and Joy” or nothing.
And yes, I’ll take dance lessons so we can do a proper swing dance to it.

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A lot of these songs are making me think that it’s kind of nice to be single.

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Extreme’s “More Than Words” is NOT a wedding song, either. It’s not even a love song. :rolleyes:

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“Truly, Madly, Deeply”, by Savage Garden. I was crazy about it when it came out, but I listen to it now and while I still like it, there’s some cringing from the sap:

The same goes for their "I knew I Loved You":
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the chicken dance would make a great “first dance”.

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The classic wedding song is “Why Don’t We Do It In The Road”.

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Jimmy Soul’s If You Want To Be Happy might fit the bill…

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I Will Be Here by Steven Curtis Chapman

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I add “Every Breath You Take” to this. This obsessive stalker is creepy and full of accusations. "In a 1983 interview with the New Musical Express, Sting explained: “I think it’s a nasty little song, really rather evil. It’s about jealousy and surveillance and ownership.”
http://www.songfacts.com/detail.php?id=548

Back on the OP’s topic “The Way You Look Tonight” and “I Can’t Help Falling in Love with You.” Written with weddings in mind, maybe.

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If you really want to blow peoples’ minds, play some of the earlier covers:

Robert Mitchum


The Charmer (better known today as Louis Farrakhan)