My brother and his wife celebrated their 7th wedding anniversary this week, and it got me thinking again about their wedding song…
As the bride’s car arrived at the venue my brother suddenly told me he was to play the guitar as she walked down the aisle, and asked “What should I play?”. Slightly flabbergasted to be asked that at the literal last minute, I drew a complete blank.
But despite putting minutes of thought into it then, and on and off over the years since then, I’ve never come up with an unambiguous love song - not breakup song, not unrequited love song, but a happy-to-be-with-you-forever song - in that general early/mid 90s, grungy, alt rock style that he is so into. We were both huge fans of Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Live, and so on.
So put yourself in my shoes. It’s 2006, and suddenly someone turns to you and says “Quick, the bride’s arriving. What should I play on the guitar as she walks down the aisle?”. Knowing his style… What would you suggest?
If I had my guitar and was told to play some grungy love songs at a wedding reception, these are what they’d get:
‘About A Girl’ (Nirvana)
‘Suck You Dry’
(Mudhoney)
‘All Apologies’ (Nirvana)
‘Touch Me I’m Sick’ (Mudhoney)
‘Drain You’ (Nirvana)
‘Sugar Kane’ (Sonic Youth)
‘Breed’ (Nirvana)
‘Cannonball’ (The Breeders)
If I was restricted to one song, and had to be serious, I’d go with ‘About A Girl’. It’s not quite a traditional sappy love song, but it has the ‘I do’ bits in the verses. I figure it is a good fit for a wedding.
ETA: Yeah, I know a couple of those songs are out of the ‘grunge’ sphere, but I can’t think of any others. Sorry.
Wonderwall is certainly not grunge but it would be a good song to use from the era.
What about November Rain? Once again, it’s not grunge but would work. So would Tonight from the Smashing Pumpkins.
The only thing I wanted at our wedding was to have “Lovesong” by The Cure played. We had a friend sing it while it was played on piano. Other than that I told my wife she could do whatever she wanted.
