Response to "NPR Wedding Music"

A response to NPR Wedding Music, sent to me via e-mail, reposted anonymously here:

I was in town yesterday shipping a package and saw that my mom and my sister were at the UPS store at the same time. I walk up to my mom's car only to find her crying. Turns out she has been reading the "Martha Stewart Book of Weddings." She said she was fine reading the chapter on wedding cakes (she likes cake), but once she got to the one about wedding songs, she lost it (in a good way)....

NPR Wedding Music

Stephen Thompson is one of the music experts on NPR. I like him a lot. One day I sent NPR a note saying that I liked him a lot, and he sent me his "Best of" CD's for 2003, 2004, and 2005. Evidently he was having a rough move to DC away from his own midwestern family, and it was nice to hear the good words.

Anyway, today's piece:

Wedding Day Blues: In Search of the Perfect Mix CD by Stephen Thompson

He was asked to put together a mix CD for his niece's wedding. After a lot of deliberation and realization that there are really few happy songs about marriage, he came up with:

1. Clem Snide, "Forever, Now and Then"
2. Old 97's, "Question"
3. Josh Rouse, "Nothing Gives Me Pleasure"
4. Death Cab for Cutie, "Passenger Seat"
5. Jimmy Scott, "When Did You Leave Heaven?"
6. The Lemonheads, "Into Your Arms"
7. Ron Sexsmith, "Moonlight Becomes You"
8. Nick Drake, "From the Morning"
9. Norah Jones, "Come Away with Me"
10. Sade, "By Your Side"
11. Matthew Sweet, "I've Been Waiting"
12. Radney Foster & Abra Moore, "I'm In"
13. Neil Young, "Harvest Moon"
14. Chet Baker, "Embraceable You"
15. Iron & Wine, "Ab's Song"
16. Low, "The Plan"
17. Johnny Cash & June Carter Cash, "As Long As the Grass Shall Grow"
18. Clem Snide, "Find Love"

I recommend actually reading the article. The text sounds like something straight out of the mouth of a grown-up version of one of the characters in High Fidelity (book, movie, soundtrack). Additionally, you can listen to at least six of the songs from the mix directly from the story.

For more NPR music stuff, see:

NPR : Music

"Song of the Day" is a particularly good segment to catch each day (contributed to by a number of NPR music fans):

NPR : Song of the Day

Of course, there are NPR RSS Feeds for all of these and more.

• RSS: NPR : Music
• RSS: NPR : Song of the Day
• RSS: NPR : Stephen Thompson