It could turn out to be the most defining and hotly debated piece of music you’ll ever listen to. One man deliberates… The crowd don't care much about the first song – they just want to see you smooch. So unless you have taste of Birdie-Song awfulness, you're best advised to please yourselves. Easy, right? You wish. The audience may be indifferent, but you know you're choosing a relationship mission statement. This is a chance to tell everyone what you think about love, and how you feel about your partner – and a chance to do so by playing pop songs, which is how men communicate best.



You want something edgy yet accessible, sentimental yet subtle, famous yet surprising. You suggest Lou Reed's ‘Perfect Day’, which sounds ideal; she says Lou Reed is weird, and points out that it's actually about hard drugs anyway. At least the ‘Birdie Song’ is straight with you. As you return to the drawing board, you begin to envy couples with no interest in music whatsoever, who can simply stick a pin in Classic Love Songs Vol. 46 and get on with weighing up the panna cotta and the chocolate fondant.

If it helps, imagine a graph plotting the compatibility of your taste (x) against your respective enthusiasm for music (y). Similar taste and similar enthusiasm, up in the top right hand corner, is a cakewalk – grab two bottles of wine, argue about songs for six hours and go head-to-head on Rock Band or SingStar to make the final decision. It'll be like an ordinary Friday night.
Down in the bottom right corner? Equally strong passion, totally different taste. That's a wild card. If your enthusiasm for Bach is matched by hers for the Dolly Rockers, you might be best off forgetting it and arranging something else, like table tennis or snake-charming.

But you might also surprise one another. I want ‘This Must Be The Place’ by Talking Heads, and expected to be writing about how my girlfriend disagrees. But I left her listening to it while I made breakfast, and she came downstairs, put her arms around me as I fried an egg, and said, “I loved it!” Which goes to show that neither music nor women must ever be second-guessed, and that picking a first song can be simple after all.

Now I just have to convince her to let me dance like David Byrne.

words Nathan Midgley

Copyright WED Magazine 2010