Songs: Family Wedding 2021

notes / gigs / releases

I went into the future
To see what i'd become
When the women that i fall for
Are all some young woman's mum
I'm a cuddly fun-packed uncle
To my brother's little kids
Dancing at their wedding
To late eighties hits

And I'm up and i'm dancing when "The Queen Is Dead" comes on
At a Family Wedding in 2021.

I went up to the bar
And I bought myself a beer
He thanked me, then he asked me
"What in God's name are you doing here?
Go back to where you came from
Change the way things are
Make yourself amenable
Before things get this far"

Then he's off, and he's dancing when they play "She Bangs the Drums"
At a Family Wedding in 2021

Is this my doom? Is this my hell?
Never knowing who or what to tell?
Never saying what i think?
Will this torment never end
Always being someone's sad and lonely single friend
Being taken out on Sunday afternoons for a drink?

And I'm off and i'm dancing when they play "This Charming Man"
At a Family Wedding in 2021

And i'm back and i'm dancing to "Rave On"
Until a Family Wedding in 2021.

Published by Wipe Out Music Publishing

Goodness me but this is a sad song, this is really how I felt at the time - sad, lonely, and like I was DOOMED to end up as the fat dancing older me in the song. It was triggered, I think, by going to a few weddings in a row, and also by one of my friends and his girlfriend coming round one day to take me out for a drink in a country pub (although I can't remember who it was who did this), and me suddenly feeling like a lonely old uncle being visited once in a while out of duty.

There's quite a few sad songs on this CD aren't there? The above all got tangled up with one of the Things I Said In The Pub i.e. that there'd come a time when the great modern songs we love so much NOW would be looked upon as evergreen classics by most people, and boring "old people's music" by all other generations down the line, and now, nearly a decade after I first wrote the song, this is coming true. The original version was recorded at My New Flat for the cassette "A Church Hall Of Sound", along with all the other songs on that EP, and this one was chosen to be re-recorded firstly because quite a few people seemed to have been quite touched by it, but mostly because I was really really REALLY pleased with the keyboard solo. I've played it live a few times too, though not for a long time, as it usually gets the sort of pitying looks from the audience that inspired its writing in the first place.