Song Premiere: Emily Mure “The Wedding Song”
Songs have stories, beginnings, inspirations. Some come from places of pain, of sorrow or of loss, while others come from a place of love and joy…the latter being an often time difficult subject matter to master. But, lucky for us listeners and music lovers there are songwriters like Emily Mure who tackle it with poise and grace and come out with a heartfelt and genuine take on the more positive side of human emotion.
Mure’s “The Wedding Song” was a gift…but rather than spoil such a beautiful testament to the most basic and raw of human emotion, I’ll go ahead and let the artist tell the story in her own words:
“I wrote this song for my husband with the intention of giving it to him as a wedding gift. I wanted it to read like vows, though I didn’t initially plan to perform it at the wedding. I didn’t want that pressure to affect the writing process. I wanted it to be for him without an audience, perhaps not to be performed for anyone else.
I struggled with this song. I didn’t know how to say everything I wanted to say. And I certainly couldn’t say everything in one song. We started dating when I was 22 and he was 23, we’ve been together 9 years. We met in Ireland at a time when we were both getting out of relationships and there was a lot of other difficulty in our lives back home. We were running away, looking for something meaningful that we could belong to and hoping to find ourselves in the process. We found meaning in this beautiful foreign country, in each other and in a group of friends from all over the world.
It was difficult to see how our relationship could work back home. We were young and reckless and had met in a very isolated place in a blissful situation. The first few years back in New York weren’t easy. We tried to keep running, from each other and from the messes we were in. I’d grown up thinking marriage was not something for me. Relationships didn’t seem to work and I had come to terms with that. Come to expect it. When he asked me to marry me, I was totally shocked, since we hadn’t talked about it much. So many things rushed through me, including fear. So we talked about our fears until the biggest one of all was left. What if it ends? His response when I asked him this out loud was, “well, it could”. Yes, I could lose him.
We could decide to take this step and something could happen and we could lose each other somehow. This was my absolute biggest fear. The scariest thing about opening up to something you want seems to be the fear that you might lose it. Once it became clear that the only thing holding me back was the fear of loss, the decision became obvious, though no less bold.
This song was a realization. The realization that for me, saying yes was accepting the unyielding love I’d had for him since we met all those years back. Writing it gave me a chance for several months leading up to our wedding to meditate on that love and on how much he means to me.
Our wedding was last June. The weather was unlikely and terrible, 50s and rainy. Perfectly Irish. I ended up playing this song for him on our wedding day in front of our family and friends, with my sister and best friend singing back up. My best friend said I had to and she was right, though it was the most vulnerable I’d ever felt in front of others.
Next week we return to Ireland for 3.5 weeks for a honeymoon, some touring and to reunite with our friends, some we’ll see for the first time in 9 years.
I look forward to releasing this song and bringing it back to where everything started. I’m sure a lot will be different there when we return, and other things will be just as they always were.”
“The Wedding Song” features the backing vocals of two other local musicians and songwriters, Katie Martucci and Elise Leavy. It was recorded, mixed and mastered at Dimension Sound Studios by Dan Cardinal. You can purchase the song on Emily’s Bandcamp Page.
With this big trip it’s obvious that Emily will be on the road all summer long, follow and get more info on where she is playing at emilymure.com
and be sure to follow her travels on instagram @emilymure
