Based on Facebook, most folks spent Memorial Weekend 2015 either at a wedding or at the beach. Me? I did both. That weekend I was stationed at Pauley’s Island, South Carolina. In early colonial days, the island was a summer refuge from malaria-carrying mosquitos that came to America on slave ships. Today the island is a refuge from coked up rednecks at Myrtle Beach. As you might expect, the economy runs on hammocks.
The wedding that weekend was set in the serene Brookgreen Gardens, beneath a canopy of Spanish moss. My girlfriend and I got lost, finally stumbling upon the entrance of the wedding a handful of minutes past the start time. We walked down the isle, with guests some forty yards away, seated and watching. A small bit of music from a cello and violin has started. The officiant and groom are at the alter. We are the procession’s hors d’oeuvres.
We sit at the last seats available – a second row view reserved for “Family.” No word yet on those folks’ whereabouts. The wedding party comes out and the bride has far too many bridesmaids, so one groomsman is balancing two girls. He winks at someone. The bride is ready for her big reveal and one of the bridesmaids moves to the microphone. The song: “Such Great Heights.”
At first thought, this is perfect. It’s a meaningful song for this romance and certainly worth more than the overstuffed “Canon in D.” The couple here met at Cambridge and have since spent months at a time separated by the Atlantic. A love of longing and distance is central to the song. It’s perfect.
However, also central to the song is Ben Gibbard’s layering of vocals in each verse. As one line ends, the next has already begun, usually with the run-on “And.” It’s a deceptively hard song to sing at any tempo; Iron & Wine’s slow-mo version also weaves together vocals. What ends up happening is a traffic jam of words for this poor bridesmaid. Breathless, she decided to just skip the ends of lines and nail the next stanza’s opening. This is what her notes must have looked like:
And I have to speculate
That God himself did make
Us into corresponding shapes
Like puzzle pieces from the clayAnd true, it may seem like a stretch,
But its thoughts like this that catch
My troubled head when you’re away
When I am missing you to death
Thankfully, I believe it was distracting for me alone.
Another quick music note for weddings: don’t pay for a DJ. Save it. Buy better drinks. Buy a better wedding suite. Whatever you save your money on, it’ll be worth it. As long as you have a capable MC (in this case, a brother) and an iPod, you’re fine.
This was the first wedding I’ve been to, that I can remember, that didn’t slow-pitch the usual jams: The Macarena, Shout, James Taylor. Instead it was music that actually meant something to the married couple, including a FIRE pop-punk section: Jimmy Eat World, Blink-182, Weezer. Not only is it hilarious watching retirees try to swing dance to “All The Small Things,” the playlist provided character to what is often a Chinese menu event.
