you make me want to shout....

If you were to ask C what has been occupying her time the most in the planning of this wedding, then I’m sure she’d be happy to tell you how she’s been busy with things like making sure that we have the right paperwork, that the registrar is booked and that the venue is sorted is booked, that we send out travel information and details of various hotels and things to our guests….

Meanwhile, I’ve been focusing on the really important stuff… like making sure that we have some decent music played at the reception. This process started when we invited our guests to nominate two songs on their RSVP, it continued as we made the important decision of what our first dance should be ("Fell in Love With A Girl" by the White Stripes), and then moved on into an active discussion with the two DJs about what music should be played at what stage of the evening. At one point, and at the request of one of the DJs, I even spent a ridiculous amount of time carefully thinking up a list of the ten (-ish) songs that I wanted to be used as a sample of my taste in music and as a guide for the kind of songs that I would want played.

Now that’s an almost impossible task? That changes minute by minute. How would you sum up your music taste in ten songs? What can you get away with at a wedding? Is anything fair game?

Anyway. I digress.

I’ve talked about this before, but my choice of songs was:

> "Apply Some Pressure" / "Our Velocity" - Maximo Park
> "I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor" - The Arctic Monkeys
> "Son of a Preacher Man" - Dusty Springfield
> "This Charming Man" - The Smiths
> "Blister in the Sun" - Violent Femmes
> "Substitute" - The Who
> "Feel Good Inc" - Gorillaz
> "Crazy" - Gnarls Barkley
> "Nutbush City Limits" - Ike & Tina Turner
> "My Sharona" - The Knack
> "Mr E's Beautiful Blues" - Eels
> "And She Was" - Talking Heads
> "Twist and Shout" / "Daytripper" / "Back in the USSR" - The Beatles

C. also came up with a list of ten songs.

> “Shout” - The Alex Harvey Soul Band
> “Crazy in Love” - Beyonce
> “Tamacun” / “Diablo Rojo” - Rodrigo and Gabriella
> “Hey Ya!” - Outcast
> “Fun, fun, fun” - Beach Boys
> “Don't Stop” - S Club 7
> “Uptown girl” - Billy Joel
> “Spitting Games” - Snow Patrol
> “A little less conversation” - JXL Radio Edit Remix/Elvis
> “Jolene" - Dolly Parton

Not a bad list from my girl there, I think you’ll agree.

Of that lot, the only song that the DJs were struggling to get hold of was the Alex Harvey Soul Band version of the Isley Brothers song “Shout” (yes, the same one that was later made famous by Lulu). When we were in Birmingham, I popped into a big record shop to see if I could find the elusive song and make my fiancée very happy indeed. After a bit of searching, I found what I was looking for on a 2 CD retrospective of Harvey’s career. It was £10… but to be honest, I’ve spent a lot more than that on other things for this wedding, so I wasn’t really in the mood to quibble too much. Besides, I quite like the Sensational Alex Harvey Band - their demented, thickly accented cover of Brel’s “Next” is the best version of the song that I’ve heard by far (better even than the Scott Walker version!).

So I bought it.

We popped the CD on in the car to give it a listen as we drove home. “Shout” is the opening track on the first CD, and it’s a great record. I’m sure you know it, but it’s sure to get more or less any party moving. The rest of the songs on that first CD are all pretty good, but I was keen to get onto the second disc and to listen to some of the later Sensational Alex Harvey band stuff that I was a bit more familiar with…. So I ejected the CD.

Or at least, I tried to eject the CD, but the button appears to have broken. The CD works fine, there just appears to be no simple way of getting the disc back out again.

So there we are… with about a week to go before we leave for Vienna, and the CD containing the last song that we need for the wedding reception is now stuck in C’s car.

Arse.