Most music for me is distinct soundtrack fodder.

I tend to take a narrative view of life, and that lends itself well to movie-like metaphors. Things happen in scenes and sequences. There’s a thread that connects things (whether there actually is or not… y’know, it’s in all in how you watch some movies).

And, of course, there are musical numbers.

Not a lot. Usually the soundtrack is in its proper place in the background, setting the feel and accentuating the action of the scene.

Sometimes, though… sometimes things need to go just a little surreal to really be honest and true.

This is one of those cases.

A song you’d love to be played at your wedding

Let me start right off by saying that the odds of this happening are somewhere between “slim” and “none.”

And before you get all “Awwwww… I’m sure you’ll find someone…” let me also say that it’s kind of presumptuous that you think you know my life better than I do. It’s a simple case of what is being what is. It’s up to me to either do something about it (already done) or accept the reality of thing also already done). So, save your breath and we’ll all be better off.

Now, back to the music…

Unlike most guys I know, I actually spent a fair amount of time thinking about my wedding. Over the years, I came up with a handful of hypothetical scenarios that would mesh with one aspect or another of what my bride to be and I had in common interest-wise.

Some of them were a bit… elaborate.

This is why I never assumed anyone other than me would end up paying for any wedding of mine. If there’s going to be a big production, I’m going to be a producer on it… not just a player.

This is where the music comes in.

There is one movie that pretty much hits every single one of the “hopeless romantic” notes that my heart sings. And its soundtrack is, in a word, amazing. (It’s also mostly covers and re-orchestrations of songs I’d want played at a wedding anyway… mine or anyone else’s.) One song in particular, one of the covers, just utterly nails it.

That’s how we get Ewan MacGregor and Nicole Kidman’s version of Come What May from Moulin Rouge. (The first time it comes up, not the version from the finale… because, holy crap, you don’t want the wedding to go like that…)

Of course, if possible, I just wouldn’t want it played. I’d want it performed. My the bride and me.

Also high on the list would be the version of Your Song and the whole Elephant Love Medley/Silly Love Song bit.

Because, really, that’s exactly how it should feel.

This I know.

Runners Up

The non-Moulin Rouge ones…

• The Moody Blues, Nights in White Satin – The way this swells and flows is, again, accurate. And I absolutely love the ochestration. Yeah, it may skew a little bittersweet at times in the lyrics, but that chorus is the important part. I love it.  (And everything else the Moody Blues do, too.)
• Bobby Darin, Somewhere Beyond the Sea – Mostly because of Ewan MacGregor and Cameron Diaz doing this surprise and surreal musical number in the movie A Life Less Ordinary. That would be how it would play out at the wedding. (The dance number, not the whole movie… because that would be… awkward.)