Music Monday: Top Wedding Songs

Blogging, family, happiness, music, rankings 2 Minutes

I guess I need to check my old posts more often.

Back in June of 2019, I wrote about the best songs for a funeral (I know, a little morbid), and I mentioned that I would follow-up with a post about the top wedding songs.

But that’s not what motivated me to write this post tonight. In a way, it was the election.

I was originally going to write about the best Monday Night football songs, but nothing interesting popped up. But I somehow came across a post about the best college football songs (the post mentions that Notre Dame’s song was ranked the best by the NFL), and I noticed that the post was done by the web site 538.com. Yes, the same web site that tracks political polls and offered some insightful analysis during the recent election week.

So I thought “I wonder if 538 has any other analyses dealing with music?”

And that’s how I came across their look at the world of wedding music.

Here is what they discovered when asking people to send in their wedding playlists, and then they counted how often each song was included in a playlist. Here are the top 20 songs:

SONG SET LIST APPEARANCES
1 Hey Ya! 69
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2 I Wanna Dance With Somebody 57
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3 Uptown Funk 55
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4 Shout 54
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5 Crazy In Love 50
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6 Don’t Stop Believin’ 45
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7 Billie Jean 44
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7 Get Lucky 44
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7 Twist and Shout 44
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10 Shut Up and Dance 43
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11 September 41
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11 Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough 41
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13 Yeah! 40
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14 I Want You Back 39
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14 You Make My Dreams 39
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16 Signed, Sealed, Delivered (I’m Yours) 38
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17 Sweet Caroline 36
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18 Happy 34
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18 We Found Love 34
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20 Call Me Maybe 33
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20 Ignition (Remix) 33
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While I don’t really know the first song, I feel obligated to play it here since it did come in first. But fortunately, I did come across a cover of it by Walk Off The Earth, which as you might expect, is wonderful:

I’ll include just one more, but it is a tough call between Shout, Don’t Stop Believin’, Twist and Shout, and Sweet Caroline.

But I think I’ll go with Twist and Shout because of this great move clip from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off featuring the song:

The one song I remember from our wedding is the song we danced to, “If”, by Bread. An all-time classic, at least in the Borden household. I know I said I’d only include two songs, but I might get in trouble if I didn’t include this one:

*image from Pinkbook

Published by Jim Borden

A 60-something guy trying to figure out the world, and his place in it. Happily married for 40-plus years, three wonderful sons. Accounting teacher, fitness enthusiast, blogger, reader.

Published

26 thoughts on “Music Monday: Top Wedding Songs”

  1. Hey Ya was originally sung by Outcast. I love the official music video, but I never really take it as something like a wedding song. I mean, the lyrics is dark despite the upbeat tone.
    “If” by Bread and Don’t Stop Believin’ hits all the right spots in my heart.

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  2. Kudos for the choice of If at your wedding. That really is a beautiful song. I’m pretty familiar with most of these songs, but at first glance, several of them don’t strike me as wedding songs. (Billie Jean? among others) One other thing is that some of these titles are common enough that there is more than one song with the same title. For example, I know an old song called Get Lucky by Loverboy (pretty sure that’s not the one the list is referencing) and Get Lucky by Daft Punk. (not sure if that is the one either)

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    1. I am biased, but I agree that “If” is a beautiful song. And I also agree that some of the songs don’t seem like wedding songs. I think part of the problem is that the sample size seemed pretty small, they only looked at 163 playlists that people sent in…

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  3. Well, that list is filled with many songs I had not expected. But I can see why they made the list. Most are upbeat tunes with great hooks that can’t help but make you want to dance. I have not heard “If” in a long time. One of my favorites on the list. Now that we have covered the musical needs for a weeding and a funeral, I wonder what is next.

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  4. Some strange choices of wedding songs on that list, especially the top one. Was D.I.V.O.R.C.E on the list anywhere?

    Thanks for including WOTE, my day is always better for seeing them. Good to see Marshall and the much-missed Mike again. Did you know they released a new video yesterday? It’s lovely.

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  5. Lots of great music in your selection, Jim. I don’t think we had much music at our (non-traditional) wedding. I’ve chosen 2 songs so far for my funeral – whatever form that may take – Moondance (my favourite ever Van Morrison song) and Precious Time (also by VM – has a good message about the importance of not wasting time).

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  6. i love this version by wote, but i also thoroughly love the original. (hey ya). all i’ve requested for my wake, is that we have no chicago or barry manilow, other than that, have at it. (not against either, but just can’t listen to them one more time) p.s. if they decide to go all chicago and barry, i won’t know.

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    1. I watched the original Hey Ya, and it didn’t do much for me, but ti seemed like a fun song. You are the second person to mention that you are already planning songs for your funeral; I guess I need to start thinking about it. Color My World will always have a special place in my memory – it’s the first song I ever slow-danced to…
      and poor Barry Manilow gets no respect… 🙂

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  8. Good songs but they didn’t make our wedding list! Now ‘IF” I have to say is my favorite out of all of them, great choice! My husband included that song on a love song tape he made for me while we were dating. 🙂

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