"The Wedding Song" Abby Wood

riyl: Dido, Regina Spektor, Feist

Abby: I've always found myself incapable of writing a "love song." So as we all get older, being asked to play for weddings of friends, I wasn't sure what exactly that should look like. Of course there are the mopey ballads and "I Swear's" of the world, but none of that seemed right. So I tried to start thinking about what love actually is.

I guess the conclusion was that without a doubt, I believe love is the most often misused word in the English language.

We "love" pizza. We "love" our friends. We'd "love" to go on vacation. For all our mentioning of it, I doubt that most of us ever really think about the implications of what we're saying. Love is complete and entire self sacrifice. Love is forgiveness, mercy, and honesty. It's the laying down of our lives, the things that we want or think we deserve, in the light of the beloved. It's basically the one thing that we're all looking for and can't seem to find within ourselves.

Love changes everything.

"First we were loved, now we love."

Chad: When Abby played this song at our friend Brian's wedding, I knew it had to be recorded and heard. So, of course I contacted her and asked her if I could record Brian's wedding song so people could have it. She said yes, and so on a Sunday night we met up for a few hours to record this song. This was a first for me for several reasons. Namely, this is the first song I've released that I recorded with my new Apogee ONE interface, as well as my first song finished off of Logic Express 9. It ran as smooth as I was hoping--the interface worked seamlessly as did LE9. Another first for me was that I was acting in a role of producer and recorder for a song that was not my own. I quickly learned that this is a very tricky spot to be in, because you want to help someone's song along, but you also want to keep into perspective the fact that it IS their song, and whatever they want done with it you have to abide. Thankfully Abby and I were on the same page for where we wanted her song to go, so that made things worlds easier. This was also the first song I ever attempted to master. It really does make a WORLD of difference for a song, when you master it. Not to say that I did anywhere NEAR to a good, or even decent job. But I did think it greatly improved how the song sounds. I really hope that I can find myself in the role of producer/recorder again soon. It's super amazing to help someone put their art into listenable form.