Tuesday, January 31, 2017

Wedding music?

The previous post prompts the question in this one. In the Gilmore Girls episode “I Can’t Get Started” (May 21, 2002), Sookie St. James walks down the aisle to a recording of Ella Fitzgerald singing “I Can’t Get Started” (music by Vernon Duke, words by Ira Gershwin). It’s a beautiful song (with a terrific bridge), but it’s a self-mocking lament, whose singer has triumphed in everything but romance: “The North Pole I have charted / But can’t get started with you.” It’s hardly a wedding song. Everyone in Stars Hollow says so. Except Sookie: “Oh, who listens to the lyrics?” Lorelai: “Anybody not hanging out with Annie Sullivan by the water pump.”

My question to you, reader: what wedding music have you heard (or heard of) that seems to you, well, less than appropriate to the occasion? I can name one song (heard of): Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah,” as an instrumental. Do its unheard words still matter? I’d say so.

comments: 2

Chris said...

I wasn't familiar with Ella's version (though I see it now). I associate the song with Billie Holiday (with Lester Young & co.).

Michael Leddy said...

Yep. One of my favorite versions (instrumental) is from the last officially recorded Ellington performance, with Harold Ashby on tenor.