Side A
Artist	Song
Counting Crows	Accidentally in Love
Roy Orbison	Oh Pretty Woman
The Beatles	Can't Buy Me Love
Sam Cooke	Don't Know Much About History
The Crystals	Then He Kissed Me
Neil Sedaka	I Must Be Dreaming
The Beach Boys	Don't Worry Baby
The Righteous Brothers	Soul and Inspiration
The Shirelles	One Fine Day
Carl Carlton	Everlasting Love
Semisonic	Chemistry
Pop!	Pop! Goes My Heart
Modern English	I Melt With You
The Monkees	I'm a Believer
Diana Ross and the Supremes	You Can't Hurry Love
The Platters	Only You
Etta James	At Last
The Diamonds	Church Bells May Ring
Dreamlovers	When We Get Married
Petula Clark	My Love
The Beatles	Twist and Shout
Dusty Springfield	I Only Want to Be With You
Tommy James and the Shondells	I Think We're Alone Now
The Drifters	Save the Last Dance for Me
The Chi-Lites	Have You Seen Her
Frankie Valli	Can't Take My Eyes Off of You
Van Morrison	Into the Mystic
Side B
Artist	Song	Buy
They Might Be Giants	Love is Eternity
The Rentals	My Summer Girl
The Ramones	Oh Oh I Love Her So
The White Stripes	You're Pretty Good Looking (for a Girl)
The Raveonettes	That Great Love Sound
Apples in Stereo	Can You Feel it?
Belle and Sebastian	Sukie in the Graveyard
The Boy Least Likely to	I'm Glad I Hitched My Apple Wagon to Your Star
Swirl 360	Candy in the Sun
Todd Rundgren	Mighty Love
Van Go	Prettiest Girl
Stars	Reunion
Tilly and the Wall	Bessa
Mint Royale	Don't Falter
Magnetic Fields	Nothing Matters When We're Dancing
Cake	Strangers in the Night
New Order	Age of Consent
Wreckless Eric	Whole Wide World
Rodrigo y Gabriela	Vikingman
Mates of State	Goods
The Decemberists	July, July!
The Eels	P.S. You Rock My World
Fruit Bats	When U Love Somebody

Comment:

Well, I'm getting married this week (in 2 days, specifically), and any time's a good time for a mix, even one as heavily recycled as this bunch. Actually, I was commissioned to make a few CDs for the after party, and who needs a lame DJ? Unless it was A.D. 69, but I'm pretty sure he's busy, and probably not in my area (a city just north of San Diego). So this is what I came up with - to be honest, I didn't work very hard on them, because at this point I feel I've exhausted most of the overtly romantic songs she and I could like with Valentine, anniversary, and birthday mixes, so I'm just putting together the same stuff yet again. There are a few newbies in here but not much, really. And I know it's all really cheesy, in-your-face music, but that's me: as much as I can appreciate the value of nuance and delayed gratification, I've just never been very good at subtlety, I'm afraid. Besides, almost all of these songs have personal meaning to either she or I. To wit, a few notes:

1) Counting Crows - not the classiest opener for a wedding mix, but "Shrek" is one of her favorite movies and we have good memories of summer 2004, when the sequel came out and this blissed-out pop confection hit the radio. The Crows were okay back in the day, but I never would've expected anything as effervescently positive as this from them

2) Roy Orbison - one of her favorite songs, and obviously an ideal summation of my attraction for her. She was going to sing it to me at the wedding, but chickened out understandably at the last minute (I myself briefly considered singing All-4-One's "I Swear" until I realized how pathetically 8th grade of me that would be, even though I still love that damn song)

4) "Don't Know Much About History" - a romantic standard. If I were to overanalyze, I could say it symbolizes my own status: I'm fairly smart in a mild academic way (I'm a proficient speller, at least), but pretty stupid in the grand scheme of things. I don't have many honed skills, and I have difficulty retaining information I'm supposed to learn. I haven't accomplished much in life up to this point, either, especially compared to all my peers. But loving my wife is one thing I can do well, for whatever that's worth...very corny, I know.

5) "Then He Kissed Me" - ever since I saw "Adventures in Babysitting" as a kid (I'm a man of illustrious experience), I've been in love with this song, so I add it to almost every romantic mix I make

6) "I Must Be Dreaming" - beautiful lyrics, lovely song, she and I have shared it many times

21) "Twist and Shout" - not so much blatantly romantic, but good for kicking up your heels. Which I shouldn't encourage, since I'm so bad at it

23-26) Tommy James, Drifters, Chi-Lites, Frankie Valli - these are all officially "our" songs. Valli most of all is our anthem of love, but all 4 songs have played a great part in our lives ever since we got together

27) Van Morrison - not that I ever, throughout my life, gave much/any thought to the details of my eventual wedding, but I think I've kinda always wanted this to be played at it.

Side 2, meanwhile, is pure self-indulgence. I mean, I still tried to stick to love-related songs (with some exceptions), but since she isn't interested in my indie music tastes, we don't exactly share this material, alas. Just romantic songs I hopelessly adore, and a few miscellaneous gems that I thought would bring a desired mood to the affair (Mates of State, Apples, Rodrigo y Gabriela, New Order, Decemberists). The party will probably be several hours long, and with all the commotion I don't suppose much attention will be paid to the music, so I didn't feel bad making one of the mixes into a bunch of songs no one there except me and one of my friends will ever have heard of. This is my element.

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