The Nine Worst Songs to Play at Someone’s Wedding Reception

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ben folds, billy joel, bruce springsteen, carly simon, eric clapton, fun, harry chapin, humor, music, r.e.m., rock, social distortion, Stephen Roth

9 .”Wonderful Tonight,” Eric Clapton

This soft rock “classic” makes the playlist at a lot of wedding receptions, and it shouldn’t. Here’s why: on the surface, “Wonderful Tonight” sounds like a sweet, loving tribute from Eric to his then-wife (and George Harrison’s ex-wife), Pattie Boyd. But listen to the words, and there is definitely something darker going on: “It’s time to go home now, and I’ve got an aching head. So I give her the car keys, and she helps me to bed.” In other words, Clapton tied one on at the party and is too drunk to make love to his beautiful wife, or even drive her home. He just keeps murmuring “You were wonderful tonight,” before finally passing out. Is that any way to start out a marriage?

8. “That’s the Way I Always Heard it Should Be,” Carly Simon

Ugh. Carly Simon is a beautiful, talented woman, so why did she have to record this grim number about shedding your identity and conforming to social norms? Was she trying to warn James Taylor that their marriage was going to be a dud? “You want to marry me? We’ll marry,” Carly drones sleepily, like someone who has been mixing their antidepressants with too much alcohol. A wonderful theme song if they ever decide to make another re-boot of The Stepford Wives.

7. “You to Thank,” Ben Folds

Ben Folds has been to the altar four times, which has enabled him to build an impressive catalog of songs about shitty marriages. The couple in “You to Thank” is doomed from the start. Their first Christmas together, they manage to put on a brave front for their parents, but both man and wife are already contemplating exit plans. “I’ve got you to thank for this!” Folds wails at his imaginary partner while banging out a few angry chords. If you happen to invite Ben Folds to your wedding reception, you might keep him a safe distance from the piano…and the liquor.

6. “Everybody Hurts,” R.E.M.

This 1992 hit from when the Athens, Georgia band was at the height of its powers reads like one of those brightly colored pamphlets you might find in your grief counselor’s waiting room. “Hold on,” and “Don’t throw your hand,” is Michael Stipe’s advice for us, even though the day is long and tomorrow’s going to be another crappy day, and there isn’t much worth living for. I listened to this song a lot after breaking up with a college girlfriend. It didn’t help.

5. “Cats in the Cradle,” Harry Chapin

Not specifically about marriage, but just an all-around downer about career pressures and family life. The CliffsNotes on this 1970s folk hit: Dad doesn’t make time to do things with his son, then gets all bent out of shape when the kid, now grown, doesn’t want to have anything to do with him. Karma’s a bitch, and Harry makes sure we get the point, over and over again, with a sentimental but catchy chorus.

4. “Carry On,” Fun

I threw this one in here because I heard a mom humming it to her three-year-old in the park today, and I was reminded of what a terrible, terrible song this is for any occasion. Yet another piece of unsolicited advice from a twenty-something pop star on how to endure this long slog through the muck called life: “If you’re lost and alone, and you’re sinking like a stone, carry o-o-o-o-on!” Somewhere out there, Michael Stipe is flapping his arms awkwardly.

3. “Ball and Chain,” Social Distortion

Title says it all, doesn’t it? The protagonist in this song copes with his failing marriage by holing up in a cheap motel, drinking all day at the bar, and telling anyone who will listen about his troubles. “You can run all your life, but not get anywhere,” he says, apparently too depressed or drunk to pick up the phone and tell his wife it’s over.

2. “Darkness on the Edge of Town,” Bruce Springsteen and E Street Band

One of the bleakest, most depressing songs from a man who has written a career’s worth of bleak, depressing songs. Deception, humiliation, unemployment, self-loathing, suicidal thoughts–“Darkness” covers all the elements that can turn a marriage into a living nightmare. Word has it even The Boss himself had to ingest a couple of Valium after recording this 1978 classic.

1. “Just the Way You Are,” Billy Joel

“Baby, don’t go changin’ to try and please me. Because, I’ll tell you, this is one hombre who ain’t changin’ for no one! What you see is what you get, that’s what I say! And what if you start changin’ too much, maybe tryin’ to improve yourself by going to the gym or takin’ night classes? Well, then, I’ll be forced to change into an angry little man who’s gonna need to know what his wife is up to every single second of the day. Nobody needs that, right?! So quit your yappin’ and let’s sit down and watch Rockford Files together, okay?”

Editor’s Note: No Pink Floyd, Nirvana or country music songs were considered for this list because, well, what would be the point?

The Story Behind the Photo (Maybe)

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1990s, 1991, friendship, high school, hormones, lolapalooza, love, lust, r.e.m., summer, teens

This picture was taken sometime during the summer before senior year. We called ourselves “The Group” that summer, and we did everything together. Or maybe it’s better to say we went everywhere together: Six Flags, Lolapalooza, baseball games, the beach at Hightower Lake, the big July 4th fireworks show. Jeremy was a ticket-taker at the Omni 6 multiplex, and he let us in for free if it wasn’t too busy. The Group saw a lot of great movies that way: Terminator 2, Thelma and Louise, Bill & Ted Go to Hell, The Naked Gun 2. Okay, so maybe they weren’t all great movies.

We were smart kids, but we weren’t nerds. We had friends who were popular and accepted us, but we were never in the cool crowd. We were ambitious. We talked a lot that summer about SATs and college applications, about how great it would be to go somewhere like Stanford or Duke or NYU, anyplace far away from Cantering Hills and its suburban ranch-house sameness. We shared a few of our secrets and insecurities with each other, but there was little talk about The Group enduring past senior year. We were all headed in different directions to realize different dreams.

Things started getting weird in late August. That was around the time of the infamous Saturday night sleepover at Shawn’s house. Someone brought a case of Keystone, and I think it was Jennifer who scored a 2-liter of Purple Passion. Most of us crashed on the king-size bed in the master bedroom and, at some point during the night, Shawn and Lexie hooked up. Shawn claimed he unsnapped Lexie’s bra, but Lexie swore that wasn’t true–it was just a lot of making out and maybe a little dry humping. Nobody took their clothes off, she said. At any rate, The Group was never quite the same after that.

That was followed by Jeremy’s Big Crush on Jennifer, an obsession that lasted six weeks and one that Jennifer did not reciprocate. At one point Jeremy made her a mixed tape titled “Shiny/Happy,” which contained the usual dreary alternative songs about heartbreak and rejection. That tape sat in Jen’s Mazda for a whole year but I don’t think she ever listened to it. Everything came to a head after the Fort Mill football game. Jeremy got into a fifth of Wild Turkey and decided to T-P the big oak tree in Jen’s front yard. Unfortunately, her father woke up before Jeremy could unleash all his rolls, and he chased Jeremy down the street while brandishing a 5-iron.

The Group still hung out that fall, usually Saturday nights at the Flowery Branch access on the lake. But the gatherings were less frequent and more awkward. The end came on a chilly November night in the high school parking lot. I had just finished band practice and was heading back to my car with French horn in hand when Jeremy stopped me.

“I don’t want to be your friend anymore,” he said.

I felt a tightness in my throat. I knew what this was about.

“What are you talking about?” I asked anyway.

“The way you treated Todd,” he said. “That was cold. I talked to Shawn about it and he agrees. We don’t want to hang out with you anymore.”

Jeremy was referring to Todd Baker, the sixth member of The Group. I knew Todd had a crush on me. I had known it since the beginning of the summer when we went swimming in the lake and he kept running his hands through my wet, tangled hair. At the movies, Todd would always find a way to sit next to me and sometimes he would thread his popcorn buttered fingers into mine. I finally let him kiss me on the bus ride back from an Honor Society rally we all attended. He had thin lips and was a delicate, almost cautious kisser. We never did anything after that, but now he was pissed off because I was seeing Darren Barnhorse.

“You led him on,” Jeremy said. “You shouldn’t treat Todd like that. He’s your friend.”

“Exactly,” I said, striding toward my Volkswagen Rabbit. “We’re friends, and that’s it.”

I made it to my car and reached for the door handle, but Jeremy blocked me. He leaned in, his breath smelling faintly like a bean burrito. It was 5:30, and the sky had a purplish tint. It felt like it could rain at any moment.

“You think you’re so cool, don’t you?” he said. Then he pressed his lips against mine, hard. It was an angry kiss, but I more than held my own. I pulled away after a few seconds, or maybe it was a few minutes. Jeremy stepped aside and I got into my car and cranked the ignition. He offered a tiny wave as I backed out–not the kind of gesture someone gives you when they don’t want to be friends anymore.

I drove off with two thoughts in my brain: 1.) I had left my French horn somewhere on the asphalt parking lot and, 2.) The Group was seriously fucked.

 

 

R.E.M. and the New World

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1980s, 1985, alternative rock, athens, atlanta, fiction, georgia, high school, music, north carolina, r.e.m., rock, Stephen Roth, u2

Looking back on it, Crawford Connelly was kind of a prick, but he did Grady one enormous favor: he introduced him to music.

“You’re from Georgia, right?” Crawford asked on their first ride to school together.

“Yeah,” Grady said, even though he hadn’t lived there in six years.

“You like R.E.M.?”

“Sure, man.” Grady wasn’t certain he had heard correctly, but he thought Crawford must have meant R.E.O. Speedwagon, which Grady did, in fact, like. He’d been listening to the Wheels Are Turnin’ album for most of the summer.

Crawford pulled an unlabeled, dark grey cassette from the car’s console and popped it into the player. From the custom-installed Bose speakers came a jingly-jangly guitar riff that sounded nothing like anything produced by R.E.O. Speedwagon.

Crawford lit a cigarette while waiting to turn onto Battlefield Road, which would take them to Church of Christ Presbyterian School, where Grady’s mom had recently enrolled him in the hopes of securing a quality, private school education.

“I dunno, man. I still like Murmur the best,” Crawford said between songs. “What’s your favorite?”

“Huh?”

“What’s your favorite R.E.M. album?”

“Oh,” Grady said, staring at his book bag. “Probably Murmur, I guess.”

“Yeah,” Crawford said, taking a drag from his Camel. “It’s pretty awesome.”

It did not take long for Crawford Connelly to deduce that his passenger knew nothing about the emerging band scene coming out of Athens, Georgia, nor much else about music beyond whatever shit was on Casey Kasem’s Top 40 Countdown. Crawford probably knew this from the moment Grady stepped into his car. The kid was wide-eyed, ruffled and hopelessly unstylish in his dress and speech. The recent switch from glasses to contact lenses had only slightly improved his appearance. Grady looked like what he was: a skinny, nerdy, terrified high school freshman, product of a single mom who lacked either the time or awareness to inform him that wearing a blue and white collared shirt with hexagonal patterns to the first day of class was decidedly uncool in Charlotte, North Carolina, in 1985. Or any place in any year, for that matter.

Crawford took Grady under his wing, at least during the 15 minutes of drive time each morning from their neighborhood to the school parking lot. Once they were in the lot, Grady was on his own. Crawford would light up another cancer stick with one of his letter-jacketed buddies, and Grady would skulk into the classroom building. But the morning drives in Crawford’s Chevy Caprice were Alternative Rock 101: starting with the R.E.M. albums of the day—Murmur, Reckoning, Fables of the Reconstruction (which Crawford thought was their weakest effort) and the debut EP Chronic Town. Pretty soon, they moved on to the B-52s and more obscure bands like Drivin’ & Cryin’, Guadalcanal Diary, Jason & the Nashville Scorchers and White Animals. By the time R.E.M. came out with its next release, Life’s Rich Pageant, Grady was primed and ready. Exercising his newly acquired learner’s permit, he drove to the Record Bar and bought the tape the first chance he got, and spent much of the following weekend holed up in his room, trying to jot down and decipher the mysterious lyrics (“Fall on Me,” as far as he could tell, had something to do with the environment).

A few weeks later, when his mother forbade him from driving down to Atlanta with his new friends and watching R.E.M. play the Fox Theater as part of its Work tour, he again retreated to his room, grabbed the first thing he could get his hands on (a Trivial Pursuit box) and hurled it against the wall. The surprisingly large sheetrock dent it left was a stark reminder throughout his teenaged years that, despite getting good grades and mostly staying out of trouble, he was still a prisoner in his own home. “Welcome to the Occupation,” indeed.

Junior year came around, and this time Grady would not be denied. He would travel to the Omni in Atlanta to see U2 on its Joshua Tree tour. He would never forget that show, the very first concert he ever attended: the opening organ strains of “Where the Streets Have No Name” filling the arena, then a spotlight shining on The Edge as he took the stage, then a familiar voice that was both current and already iconic at the same time, “I want to run, I want to hide…” Grady looked next to him at Emily Duncan, a sophomore whose parents had, inexplicably, allowed her to travel ten hours, round-trip, in a Honda Civic crammed full of beer and teenagers. They were in the Omni’s upper deck, but Emily’s face glowed as if Bono were a few feet away, singing just to her. Grady badly wanted to kiss Emily Duncan, and he would attempt that maneuver a few hours later in the parking lot of a Denny’s. It was too late at that point. The magic of the show had faded for her, and she just wanted to get back home to her boyfriend.

There would be many more shows, including R.E.M.’s Green Tour in 1989, which wasn’t as life-altering as Grady had expected. The band had already made it big at that point. They were no longer a secret discovery shared by him and the self-possessed, nicotine-breathing soccer star who carpooled him to school every day. That was okay. R.E.M. had been the first, the one that opened his eyes to a new world where music could be cutting, raw and angry, or even moody, sly and cerebral. It could be many things, and it could be about so much more than just liking some girl.