The story of this song starts about a year before I ever thought of writing it. My niece Amy was getting married and asked me to Emcee her wedding, a very nice gesture to involve me as more than just a guest (and guarantee my attendance!). I agreed of course, not without some nerves looking ahead to all that public speaking, without the structure of a song to cling to, or my everpresent guitar to hide behind. But I am always down for a challenge and she was quite organized in the preparation of the evening, so really it wasn’t going to be all that difficult. Still, if I was going to be taking the stage I knew I wanted to come up with something special, from my own personal set of skills: in other words, I determined to write a song for the occasion, smuggle my guitar into the reception and surprise bride, groom and all the guests with it.
If you’ve never tried to write a song to order, it can be pretty difficult and frustrating. First of all, I wasn’t even sure what kind of music she really loved – I wouldn’t want to do a country song only to find out they hated that. Her mom gave me some hints, and some possible story points to mine for lyrics – none of which made it in – finally you just have to start singing and playing chords and force something out. I ended up with a fairly generic, “How’d I get it so good?” type song, about spending “the rest of my life with you” – a pretty good tune that gets its point across and it went over very well on the big night. Amy and family were definitely surprised, and I think the gesture got full marks, so – success!
The following year, my other niece Andrea (I have two, along with 4 still-unmarried nephews – girls move faster than boys it seems!) approached me to Emcee her wedding that summer. Of course, I agreed. But now I was in a bit of a quandary: obviously I would need to sing a song at her wedding too, at least a few of the same people would be there (though neither niece or her immediate family attended the other’s wedding), and I can’t be seen to be playing favorites! Most of all, I can’t just reuse the same song – nothing special about that. So, fine, I set down to go through the whole process again, and write a proper wedding song for her, from scratch. It was even harder to do this again, without repeating myself, and I was well into a composition that was frankly sucking badly when I threw up my hands and walked away, totally scrapping what I’d spent the day on.
I took a quick head-clearing break out on my glorious sunny floating deck, and because I am me, I took the guitar out there too, just in case. I was thinking it needs to be simpler, more direct, what is the essential point here? I picked up the guitar and started bashing out a high-energy A chord and just sang, “Baby, I love you” which I immediately liked, good opening. That led right into “I hope you love me too,” a fairly obvious next line, but which also sparked me to continue, as I switched up to D, “And you do; I already know it’s true” – of course you would know that, if you’re proposing, you must be pretty sure they’re going to say Yes! So this whole first verse came all at once; A up to D suggests a good ol’ bluesy progression that demands a turnaround into E major. I dropped into E and out popped, “Say I do, I wanna tie the knot with you,” with “tie” falling on a D and “you” landing back in the song’s key of A.
Now, I had something! “Say I Do” is a key phrase that boils the whole matrimonial process down to its essence. I love the simplicity of that sentence: in a mere six letters, two important verbs surround one subject. I knew there was something catchy about that line, falling so naturally on the standard 12-bar turnaround chord. The other verses came pretty quickly after that, each stage of the process following a natural progression. Loosely, the first verse is the proposal; the second puts the ring on the finger; third is planning; fourth is the actual “moment” to say those words, the wedding; and the fifth and final verse is the reception, an all-out celebration after everything’s Said and Done (ha ha, see what I did there?) I still needed another part, a chorus really (though the title phrase was already there at the end of every verse), so I was thinking about the real commitment we make when we marry, to stick with each other “for better or for worse.” And that’s how my uplifting chorus came to be a kind of cautionary, “Happiness comes and goes,” and recognition that there will be “good and bad times.”
There was more tweaking, I added a solo section to be filled later (admirably executed by the talented https://drcarlosarzabe.com/dr-carlos-arzabe/ Steven Drake on steel guitar), I repeated a couple of “Say I Do” lines at the end to build the drama, and finally stopped all the instruments for the singer to croon the final line, “I want to … grow old with you.” There too is the real essence of marriage for me (happily unmarried to the love of my life for 11 years!) – that willingness to get old in front of one another in real time. Someone must be special indeed to be worth growing old with.
I played this song at Andrea and David’s wedding, again to great surprise and joy, but I already knew I had a tune with broader appeal. More than anything else in my recent life, this song re-inspired me to make something of my musical career – it was the spark that started my latest solo project and is absolutely the anchor of the new album, https://www.petwantsclt.com/petwants-charlotte-ingredients/ Songs of Serenity. There is much more to the story too, especially surrounding the video, but that will have to wait for another time.