I’m not married, I’ve never been married, and I have no plans to ever be married. That said, I am a female born and raised in the American South, so to pretend as if I’ve never imagined what song I’d like to dance to at my wedding would be thoroughly disingenuous. Girls in the South are raised to devote as much time and energy thinking about their weddings as our cavewomen forbears devoted to thinking about the procurement of food and shelter. Funny, now that I think about it, I probably have more in common with the cavewomen than I do with my fellow Southern belles. I mean, I legitimately have spent way more time in my life thinking about the procurement of food and shelter than I have thinking about my (NEVAHGONNAHAPPEN) wedding.
I’ve mentioned a few times before on this blog the many and varied problems I have with the institution of marriage. To sum up: I have no problem whatsoever with people falling in love with whatever other consenting adult they fall in love with, nor do I have any problem whatsoever with those people ceremoniously sanctifying or celebrating that love in front of their friends, family, God, the Justice of the Peace or anyone else, and eating expensive cake and collecting a bounty of gifts and employing under-talented but earnest and hardworking DJ’s or wedding bands in the process. And I’m no libertarian, but if people want/need a piece of paper that more or less legally obliges them to be faithful, and they’re willing to pony up half of their earnings to get it, that’s fine with me, too.
Oh, and I also genuinely do believe in true love.
My problem, as I’ve said many times before, is only with the institution of marriage—sanctioned, supported and endorsed by the State– which accords more than a thousand unearned political, social and economic privileges to married couples that it denies to single people and unmarried couples. According to the last U.S. Census, more than half of taxpaying adults in this country are not married. Just for the record, the last time we realized that we were unjustifiably denying rights and benefits to that large a segment of the population, we amended the Constitution.
[Stepping down offa the soapbox now.]
Here’s the song I’d love to dance to at my wedding: “I’ll Take Care of You.” It was written and first recorded by J.D. Souther, then made popular when the Dixie Chicks covered it and included it on their hit album Wide Open Spaces. Both versions are beautiful, but I’m including Souther’s version today, because it has a sweetness to it that I think gets lost a little in the Dixie Chicks’ rendition.
There’s something fundamentally raw and honest and real about this song that I’ve always loved, but also that I’ve always associated with “real” love (s’ily en a). Should I ever get married—again, for the record, NEVAHGONNAHAPPEN—the thing I’d want to know most from my partner is that he or she will take care of me when times are hard, when people talk about us or call us funny things, when I might not see him or her, when I rise with crying eyes, when the laughter dies away. And then there’s that line by Souther: I don’t care as long as you know I love you, and you know I do. That’s all two people who love each other should ever need or want to hear.
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Here’s your quick-access link to the entire 30 Day Song Challenge 2014 prompt-list and my picks for each day.