I've mentioned this song several times here before, but I'm surprised that I never actually submitted it as its own topic. In honor of the news today, here is the wedding song of my husband and...
I've mentioned this song several times here before, but I'm surprised that I never actually submitted it as its own topic.
In honor of the news today, here is the wedding song of my husband and me.
Vienna Teng is our favorite musical artist, and this song was written specifically to talk about the event in February 2004 when then mayor of San Francisco, Gavin Newsom, told the county clerks to begin issuing same-sex marriage licenses. Approximately 4,000 gay couples from the city and beyond came in an attempt to get legal recognition of their relationships for the first time.
To not be too topical, the song abstracts a lot of the specific details. The event is reduced to simply "the news" alongside a "February holiday", and San Francisco becomes "a hilly, seaside town". Teng also specifically wrote the song to be gender neutral so that it would be applicable to couples of all types. Neither the narrator or partner is referred to with gendered pronouns, with the narrator referring to their partner affectionately as "my baby" all throughout the song.
While the specifics have been removed from the song, it's still undeniably a queer love song. The couple has been "ten years waiting". The couple mentions friends of theirs who "after giving it all they had, [laid] down and [died]" which is probably a reference to the AIDS crisis, or at the very least a reference to older queer people who passed away without the opportunity for marriage at all.
Two lines have always stuck out for me as acutely resonant. Towards the beginning of the song, the narrator says that this opportunity is "better late than the never we've been told before". I quoted this exact line in my vows to my husband, who I married late because it took a long time for my heart to thaw on the idea of marriage itself. Not on the idea of marriage with him, mind you, but on the institution.
Unlike the people in the song, who eagerly throw themselves at the first opportunity for a wedding, I had stopped waiting for it. It wasn't legal, and over half of the states in the country had passed outright gay marriage bans. I was resentful that it was denied to us and decided early on that my relationship with my partner wasn't going to be defined by hoping for something that would probably never come. When the Obergefell ruling landed, we didn't rush out and get married because I genuinely didn't want to get married -- not because I didn't love my partner but because the very idea of marriage felt tainted to me. It felt like nothing but a reminder of inequality and injustice. Finally getting it felt like a weak consolation prize, not like a liberating opportunity.
I wish at the time I'd had the optimism of the narrator and their "better late than the never we've been told before", but it took years for me to reach that point. This delay was buttressed by the other resonant line from the song:
If they take it away again some day, this beautiful thing won't change
This is more genuinely beautiful optimism, but my pessimism only let me dwell on the beginning -- the part about it being taken away.
This was for good reason, my own lived experience. After the 4,000 couples were married in 2004, the California Supreme Court voided their licenses. Their marriages were taken away from them. Later, in 2008, the California Supreme Court actually legalized same-sex marriage in the state, only for the Proposition 8 referendum to come in months later and revoke that right.
Even when we were given marriage, it was never for long, and it was never a guarantee.
Even after the landmark Obergefell ruling, we remained standing on shaky ground. Ever since the recent Dobbs decision, where Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas explicitly said that the Obergefell ruling should be reconsidered, I've had a pit in my stomach. My pessimism about marriage has slowly and beautifully thawed over time, but this was yet another reason to worry that they might again "take it away again some day", just like they had so many times before. As much as I wanted to tell myself, like the song, that the beautiful thing my husband and I have won't change, I know that's not true. We wouldn't change, sure, but the world and country in which we live in would, and for the worse.
When this most recent marriage equality bill passed in the Senate, my husband texted me and admitted that he had had a longstanding worry about the legal status of our marriage, and that he was feeling much more at ease now that the bill was likely to pass and be signed into law. I'm the worrier in the relationship and am anxious enough for the both of us. He is wonderfully easygoing -- so for him to express what he did meant that the fear ran deep. For xontext: I'm pretty sure the last time he told me he was worried about something was in February 2020, when he came back with extra groceries from the grocery store "just in case".
The good news is that, today, neither he nor I have to worry as much anymore. Our partnership has gained necessary recognition and protection. The chance that they will "take it away again someday" has lessened, significantly.
The world that we live in has changed, but this time it's for the better.
In fact, with regards to the status of our marriage, well: we've never seen a sight so fine.
Damn you, kfwyre. My heart jumped a beat when I read that because I thought you meant Vienna Teng was announcing a new album or something. Not that the equality bill isn't cause for celebration...
In honor of the news today
Damn you, kfwyre. My heart jumped a beat when I read that because I thought you meant Vienna Teng was announcing a new album or something. Not that the equality bill isn't cause for celebration though. :P
I wish! She did recently restart her newsletter, set up a Patreon, and release a small bunch of archival tracks, so signs are looking up that she's getting back into her musical groove, but I...
I wish!
She did recently restart her newsletter, set up a Patreon, and release a small bunch of archival tracks, so signs are looking up that she's getting back into her musical groove, but I think a new album is unfortunately still a long ways away.
I've mentioned this song several times here before, but I'm surprised that I never actually submitted it as its own topic.
In honor of the news today, here is the wedding song of my husband and me.
Vienna Teng is our favorite musical artist, and this song was written specifically to talk about the event in February 2004 when then mayor of San Francisco, Gavin Newsom, told the county clerks to begin issuing same-sex marriage licenses. Approximately 4,000 gay couples from the city and beyond came in an attempt to get legal recognition of their relationships for the first time.
To not be too topical, the song abstracts a lot of the specific details. The event is reduced to simply "the news" alongside a "February holiday", and San Francisco becomes "a hilly, seaside town". Teng also specifically wrote the song to be gender neutral so that it would be applicable to couples of all types. Neither the narrator or partner is referred to with gendered pronouns, with the narrator referring to their partner affectionately as "my baby" all throughout the song.
While the specifics have been removed from the song, it's still undeniably a queer love song. The couple has been "ten years waiting". The couple mentions friends of theirs who "after giving it all they had, [laid] down and [died]" which is probably a reference to the AIDS crisis, or at the very least a reference to older queer people who passed away without the opportunity for marriage at all.
Two lines have always stuck out for me as acutely resonant. Towards the beginning of the song, the narrator says that this opportunity is "better late than the never we've been told before". I quoted this exact line in my vows to my husband, who I married late because it took a long time for my heart to thaw on the idea of marriage itself. Not on the idea of marriage with him, mind you, but on the institution.
Unlike the people in the song, who eagerly throw themselves at the first opportunity for a wedding, I had stopped waiting for it. It wasn't legal, and over half of the states in the country had passed outright gay marriage bans. I was resentful that it was denied to us and decided early on that my relationship with my partner wasn't going to be defined by hoping for something that would probably never come. When the Obergefell ruling landed, we didn't rush out and get married because I genuinely didn't want to get married -- not because I didn't love my partner but because the very idea of marriage felt tainted to me. It felt like nothing but a reminder of inequality and injustice. Finally getting it felt like a weak consolation prize, not like a liberating opportunity.
I wish at the time I'd had the optimism of the narrator and their "better late than the never we've been told before", but it took years for me to reach that point. This delay was buttressed by the other resonant line from the song:
This is more genuinely beautiful optimism, but my pessimism only let me dwell on the beginning -- the part about it being taken away.
This was for good reason, my own lived experience. After the 4,000 couples were married in 2004, the California Supreme Court voided their licenses. Their marriages were taken away from them. Later, in 2008, the California Supreme Court actually legalized same-sex marriage in the state, only for the Proposition 8 referendum to come in months later and revoke that right.
Even when we were given marriage, it was never for long, and it was never a guarantee.
Even after the landmark Obergefell ruling, we remained standing on shaky ground. Ever since the recent Dobbs decision, where Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas explicitly said that the Obergefell ruling should be reconsidered, I've had a pit in my stomach. My pessimism about marriage has slowly and beautifully thawed over time, but this was yet another reason to worry that they might again "take it away again some day", just like they had so many times before. As much as I wanted to tell myself, like the song, that the beautiful thing my husband and I have won't change, I know that's not true. We wouldn't change, sure, but the world and country in which we live in would, and for the worse.
When this most recent marriage equality bill passed in the Senate, my husband texted me and admitted that he had had a longstanding worry about the legal status of our marriage, and that he was feeling much more at ease now that the bill was likely to pass and be signed into law. I'm the worrier in the relationship and am anxious enough for the both of us. He is wonderfully easygoing -- so for him to express what he did meant that the fear ran deep. For xontext: I'm pretty sure the last time he told me he was worried about something was in February 2020, when he came back with extra groceries from the grocery store "just in case".
The good news is that, today, neither he nor I have to worry as much anymore. Our partnership has gained necessary recognition and protection. The chance that they will "take it away again someday" has lessened, significantly.
The world that we live in has changed, but this time it's for the better.
In fact, with regards to the status of our marriage, well: we've never seen a sight so fine.
Damn you, kfwyre. My heart jumped a beat when I read that because I thought you meant Vienna Teng was announcing a new album or something. Not that the equality bill isn't cause for celebration though. :P
I wish!
She did recently restart her newsletter, set up a Patreon, and release a small bunch of archival tracks, so signs are looking up that she's getting back into her musical groove, but I think a new album is unfortunately still a long ways away.