SUMMER 301: ON BURNING THE PERFECT WEDDING CD

Funny how I am writing this on the last day of the wedding month. But that's the real me, a late bloomer (if ever I bloomed at all, which makes me envy Harold Bloom all the time - he was a bloomer since birth), or simply an out and out precocious practicioner of the precarious practice of pocrastination. But I can't resist the idea of doing this post since I heard Stephen Thompson's little feature on NPR's Morning Edition a few weeks ago: he spoke about love songs he compiled and put in a cd for a niece who got married in June of 2005.

Thompson is the music producer of the iconic NPR, which means the girl who got wed two years ago knew what she was doing when she asked an uncle to do a souvenir/giveaway cd for her big day. And it was so much of a blessing that I got to listen to the feature while being stuck in an hour of traffic galore at the stressful nature of Interstate 95. Which seems to be an awesome synchronicity considering that weddings are supposedly stressful too (are they really? Or maybe we should just call Wedding Eve LBM's as Life Before Marriage).

Anyway, Thompson's little feature was awesome, ruminating on the process of selecting the love songs which, by way of the yardstick he put, had to be scratched because they were either angry, or lusty, or spoke of heartbreaks or infidelity. Which makes me think, most of the songs written - I'll play a statistician and put the percentage at 90 - are about love, and more than half of them are about the lonely, miserable, sordid kind. Love is universal but miserable love must be galaxial, and I can so relate to Mr. Thompson's struggle in finding the perfect set of love songs for his beloved niece.

Yet, when the finished product was being handed over to guests at the niece's weddings, Mr. Thompson seemed to have misgivings on the selection - and still hoping that when the recipients drove home next to a sleeping passenger, they will have listened to the cds intently and sobbed audibly under the night sky.

Which makes me think: if my nieces wed (hopefully not in the next few years, please, not yet - they are young and immature including that pretty 18-year old dudette who still picks her nose at the dining table), maybe they should ask their good ole' Uncle c to compile their own wedding cd which, if I made the list today, will come up to something like this:

song/artist

1. (I Wanna) Call It Love - Sondra Lerche
2. Let's Stay Together - Al Green
3. Everytime We Say Goodbye - Sara Gazarek
4. Eso Pido Yo - Marta Gomez
5. You Will Be My Music - Frank Sinatra
6. Under Heaven's Skies - Collective Soul
7. Kapag Sinabi Ko Sa Iyo - Gary Granada
8. Who Can I Turn To - Matt Monroe
9. Whenever, Wherever, Whatever - Maxwell
10. Forevermore - Side A
11. Fire Thief - Hem
12. Para Tu Amor - Juanes
13. Yellow - Coldplay
14. Harvest Moon - Neil Young
15. Something Beautiful - Jars of Clay
16. The First Time Ever I saw Your Face - George Michael
17. All for You - Sister Hazel
18. Nightingales - Sondra Lerche