Songs for Caroline (December 2024)

Welcome to the Lovezone.

POV: You are the stir fry.

It’s a sweltering August day and here I am, staring at this Google Doc. Having radically “pimped” the Wedding Megasheet, rolling out a transformative system for understanding who our guests are, what they will be eating and what song request they’ve submitted, the creative urge bubbles up inside of me. Aware there are administrative hurdles ahead of me over the next few months, I figure I might as well get cracking. 

It is not just time pressure that makes me start writing this four months ahead of its intended publication, however. In reality, this is probably going to be quite hard to get right. How do you publicly lay down feelings of love? How gushy do I go? Will I accurately capture what I want to say? The songs are easy. The rest of it, not so much. 

In answer, as I redraft this introduction for the third or fourth time (it's October now), I realise, inevitably, that it's impossible to get right. I’ve learned from the process of trying to write a speech, that words are frankly, utterly inadequate, and always will be. Nevertheless, that isn’t a good enough reason to not bother.

Here’s the deal: My partner Caroline and I are getting married in November. As I write this, Caroline is pre-wife, once it’s published, she will be post-wife; or simply, wife. All being well, this piece will drop when we’re both in Brazil on our honeymoon, sitting in a hammock in the Amazon after a day of bothering the capybaras. Caroline is an extraordinary person, who has made the extraordinarily stupid decision to marry me. I’ve written one about my friend Connor, so I really should write one about her. 

I’ve taken the strategic decision to focus my gush on my wedding speech, so only those privileged enough to witness me mumble some suitably gooey sentiments will understand my deeper feelings. However, I do hope this will nevertheless touch on some of those sentiments.

Whilst there is no accounting for her taste in life partner, her music taste is of a substantially higher standard. She embraces the great diversity and history of music far more than I ever have; making the controversial decision to progress from the “white men with guitars” genre of her teenage years to enjoy the full spectrum of what possible sounds can enter her ears. This means that she has a much more well-rounded appreciation of things than I do; not just in music, but in life generally. But like a lot of things that Caroline does, this is subtle and understated. Whether it be the song she puts on when we’re lazing about on holiday, or what she listens to when she’s cooking, there’s always something that I have to begrudgingly admit that I quite like. Ultimately, she has sufficient confidence in the legitimacy of her own music taste that she hasn’t set up her own music Substack. 

Without wanting to sound like a tedious bore, I do genuinely feel like music has always been an important part of our relationship. Even as two people who don’t necessarily have loads of overlap between what we listen to day-to-day, it has always binded us something in some way, able to appreciate the indescribable effect that music can have on one’s experience of life. More importantly, it serves as the foundation for some of the best inside couple jokes we have. For example, one joke I really like is to pretend that I really hate The Beatles, and show great disinterest every time they come on (e.g. yawning, negging them, pretending I don’t know who it is). The joke is funny because Caroline loves The Beatles. I don’t actually hate The Beatles, I just think they’re quite mundane, but it's more fun to pretend that I hate them. We have fun. 

Anyway, this one's for you, Caroline. I’m not a great fan of those frauds from Liverpool, but I am a big fan of you. Thanks for being you and thanks for having ears. 

Play the jingle!

Comedown - Parcels

As always, to know where to start, we must go right back to the beginning. 

Picture the scene: The month and year are January 2020. Caroline and I are on our second date. It's a Sunday and we’re meeting outside Bethnel Green station, after successfully executing a little snog outside Oval tube station earlier that week. We get over the initial awkwardness of how much affection to show one another early on in dating by both immediately going in for a little greeting peck. Caroline has a hangover. We’re going for a stroll around Victoria Park. We walk past the pagoda whilst talking about hamsters and other small rodent pets, looping around the whole park until we hit the People’s Park Tavern, where we stop for a pint. It’s cold and sunny, but by the time we reach the pub the sun has almost gone down, and we camp out inside a delightful clear plastic gazebo style thing they’ve erected in the beer garden (it’s heated).

Caroline is telling me about a man who lived inside a whale’s stomach for a week, but I’m sceptical (there is some evidence that it might have happened, but Google it and decide for yourself…). Before I lose any more conversational duels, I suggest we go back to my nearby flat and I cook us up a delicious shakshouka. Without knowing it, I had activated Caroline’s obsession with eggs, so she approved this plan.

Of course, whilst cooking, you are obliged to have some audio accompaniment. I could have stuck in a Guardian Long Read podcast about avocado militia in Mexico or about assisted dying or something, but I opted for the more upbeat option and put on some upbeat music. I decide to pretend that I really like upbeat music, figuring I can reveal my true self (depressing music) at a later date.

I jest slightly, because I am a sincere fan of the band we ended up putting on. I have little memory of how we selected Parcels (I hope Caroline can shed some light on this post-publication), but I like to think I took control of the situation. It was almost certainly the influence of my dear friend and then-housemate, Dan, who went through a deep Parcels phase. I think I like them in a less obvious way, but what’s important is that I had filed them into the category of “bands who I think are simultaneously quite good and also acceptable to most other people”, and in the sub-category of “bands who would probably put across a positive, interesting image of me that doesn’t deviate too far from the reality” (also see: Tame Impala). “Oh my my” I imagined she would react. “Who are these tremendously trendy and kinda weird looking Australians you’ve put on, Sam?”, fluttering her eyelashes and whilst her hands get all clammy.

In all seriousness though, this feels like an important moment. I’m choosing Comedown, the title track off their self-titled first album, to represent that trepidation. I want to replicate that feeling after you click play on a particular song and you subtly try to gauge the other person’s reaction. And tbh, we nailed it. For the first birthday that we shared together later that year, Caroline got me the vinyl of this album; now used to entertain dinner party guests, as part of the ongoing charade to convince them that we have cool and interesting music taste.

Be My Guest - Working Men’s Club

Our third date took us onto the next phase of my carefully curated musical personality. Now I’ve laid the foundations by establishing myself as someone who listens to “cool, interesting, normal” music like Parcels, it's now time to play the “edgy” card.

We’re in Shoreditch. The initial part of the evening probably didn’t do me any favours in terms of external perceptions of my general competence, as we bumbled around this very restaurant-heavy area failing to find somewhere to eat, me losing my bearings multiple times in this stereotypically very “edgy” part of London (emphasis on “stereotypically”). We end up at a fairly indistinct Japanese restaurant, probably slightly hungrier than was ideal.

But no worries - there’s plenty to look forward to. I had sewn the seeds of edginess a few days earlier during the aforementioned shakshouka date. “Do you fancy coming to a gig on Thursday?” I no doubt asked very breezily, whilst simultaneously skillfully maneuvering the chopped tomatoes around the pan. “Yeah, I know this band that’s doing a gig in Shoreditch. They’re called Working Men’s Club. They’re pretty good” I explained with an informed coolness, effortlessly preparing the four wells in the tomato mixture into which the eggs would be cracked. Needless to say, Caroline could not resist.

Now, this gig had all the features of an incredibly cool experience. They were playing at the Old Blue Last (small venue, cool). Working Men’s Club were, at the time, very much “up and coming” and “hyped” (cool). They were young (cool), from somewhere in West Yorkshire (i.e. not London, therefore cool) and sounded like the second coming of New Order (cool). Finally, the gig was free, which gives it an added allure of unknown talent (cool).

The latter almost fucked us in fact. By being “free”, they basically allowed an infinite number of tickets to be accessed, and operated a “first come, first served” basis to get in. Upon arrival, we were greeted with a long line stretching the entire length of the downstairs bar, snaking towards the stairs to go upstairs where the gig was. An anxious twenty minutes of waiting ensued, but we did eventually get let; the last two through the door. They may have played Be My Guest, I can’t remember. The best moment was when Caroline poked her phone up above the crowd to take a photo of the band, just when the lead singer (basically a teenager) was taking his top off, which made her look a bit like a nonce.

In September that year, I got Working Men’s Club’s album (also self-titled) on vinyl for Caroline’s birthday.

Drop - The Pharcyde

After a couple of months of early relationship fun, 2020 became what 2020 was most famous for. Unable to hang out, one of us eventually plucked up the courage to video call the other one sweltering lockdown weekend (both of us hate phone calls), and we started what was in effect a long distance relationship, despite only living about nine miles apart.

This was, needless to say, a strange time. We didn’t ultimately know each other that well, and now we were forced to talk to each other through this slightly awkward and stilted medium. It’s hard to generate momentum in a relationship this way, but it was more a mission of maintaining what we had. In fact, it was arguably quite a formative part of our relationship, as it did force us into an uncomfortable space - which is of course the best place to grow from. These calls, we both agree, were a tacit acknowledgement that this relationship was worth pursuing. It could have very easily been left to drift if either of us wanted to. But neither of us did want to, so we didn’t.

Regardless, as fun as it was listening to Caroline explain to me who Stanley Tucci was and the fact he had made a cocktail and videoed it, we did eventually decide that it might be nice to see each other IRL. I’d like to tell you this happened legally, but I’m pretty sure it was around May that we finally broke, so that almost certainly isn’t true.

We spent two days hanging out. We mainly ate takeaways and watched Modern Family, but in the interim we did also engage in some music chat. She asked me if I knew the hip-hop video that’s “recorded backwards”. Exposing a sizeable musical blindspot of mine, she then proceeded to show me the video for Drop, which is very cool. I normally think music videos are tedious at best and almost never improve the experience of the song itself, but this one is very fun, and we had a nice little discussion speculating about how they made it (Answer: They essentially had to learn the lyrics to the song played backwards and move backwards whilst recording, which was then reversed for the real video to make it look like they’re moving forwards. This video explains more if you’re interested).

Innovative camerawork aside, needless to say actually spending time with one another again was another important part of our early relationship. In a time in which everything stood still and there were very few new experiences to be had, I’ll always remember this song and these couple of days as an antidote to that. 

Edge of Seventeen - Stevie Nicks

Question: Do couples have “their song” anymore? I’ve often wondered this, as I can’t recall ever encountering this phenomenon in real life. It feels like something I’ve probably picked up off American TV, when it's always “The Way You Look Tonight” or something very croony. Whilst normally this is the sort of thing I would normally find a bit trite and naff, for some reason I’ve always liked the idea of it; romanticised it in some way. This was probably a thing from my younger years, as you try to mimic what you think love is, though I don’t think I’ve ever established an “our song” with anyone.

I don’t necessarily consider Edge of Seventeen to be “our song”, but at one point I thought it might be. I think the main contributing factor was our mutual love of the film School of Rock, which feels like a pretty iconic movie for people our age; especially if you’re willing to look past what a massive wanker Jack Black is. There is a scene where Jack Black’s character takes the stuffy school principal and gets her pissed so she agrees to take them on a school trip, and they bond over Stevie Nicks after he puts her on on the jukebox. I think this film introduced me to this song, and to be fair, it is an absolute stone cold banger.

This feels like a holiday song for us. On our first holiday in Devon in May 2021, we waited out a rainy day in Ilfracombe by watching School of Rock. Thereafter, I remember listening to it in Wales. We had just spent five days on a canal boat with some of my pals, mainly cruising around the crumbling industry of outer Stoke-on-Trent, finding riverside pubs to watch England in the Euros. With a weekend to spare, we headed to Cadair Idris near Snowdonia for a couple of days, to do a big walk. On the way, somewhere in rural Wales, I remember us driving over on those roads they had just relaid, where the gravel hadn’t quite bedded in yet. I remember this song coming on and feeling very excited, as all the loose stones ping off and hit our car.

The reality of wedding planning is that you really could apply the “our song” philosophy to almost every aspect of the day (“What does this music say about us?” “What do these napkins say about us?”) We’ve spent so much time wondering what music we want to hear on the day (I do actually consider this to be important) that I think other songs have ousted Stevie Nicks at the top of the leader board. Nevertheless, this might have been our first “our song”.

Respect - Aretha Franklin

Caroline and I moved in together in February 2022, where we got to know more about each other’s living habits. One interesting thing I learned was about Caroline’s showering habits, and her astounding ability to spend as little time in the shower as possible. Caroline can be in and out of the shower in sub-90 seconds I reckon, whereas by this point in my shower journey I’m still faffing around with the taps to try and Goldilocks it to the right temperature.

You would think this would mean she wouldn’t bother bringing any entertainment into the shower with her for this personal hygiene sprint - but she does! There was a phase shortly after I moved in where she would go into the bathroom, slap on Respect by Arethra Franklin, do the quickest of rinses, and get out of there again. I always thought this was funny, imagining her in the shower singing into the shampoo bottle or whatever for the chorus, and then getting out before the song is even over.

Caroline seems to have stopped doing this recently, which is sad. Aretha has been replaced by a podcast called Shameless, which I interpret to be the Australian equivalent of Dolly Alderton, who Caroline has developed a full fledged obsession with. The less I say about this, the better. Lets just say: Bring back Aretha.

Moonlight - TootArd

As I noted in the introduction, Caroline has a much more eclectic music taste than I do. This manifests itself in lots of ways, but primarily in acts who don’t perform in English. Another joke I like to have with Caroline is that her listening to music that isn’t sung in English is unpatriotic, and therefore wrong. It's a good game to play whenever you’re on a long journey and she has control of the playlist, as I take a soft-Brexit stance and refuse to concede there is any music written in English that is any good. However, it has made me think about music more generally, and the absurd domination that English language music has historically had over the world. I like to think this is gradually changing, but I can also think of several acts I like who are from Europe but write all their songs in English, despite not being their first language (e.g. Personal Trainer, Pom Poko). This is, on an objective level, a completely absurd situation. 

Nevertheless, after my initial outrage at the very existence of this exoticism and the potentially damaging effect it could have on our country’s musical heritage, I did eventually listen to some of it and reluctantly admitted that it was quite good. I’m picking out TootArd (meaning “Strawberry “ in Arabic apparently) because they are probably my favourite example of a group I’ve been introduced to as part of this process. Two dudes from the occupied Golan Heights (part of Syria, occupied by you-know-who), they are extremely funky. On Spotify, they describe themselves as “genre fluid”, but on their Wikipedia they say they are “mountain reggae rock”, which is definitely my favourite. I had the pleasure of going with Caroline and our friend Sahil to go see them at the Jazz Cafe in 2023 sometime, which was lovely. Get yourselves some foreign music.

A Lasting Place - Loyle Carner

You simply CANNOT not mention Loyle Carner when you’re talking about Caroline and Sam. You just can’t. I would say Loyle is probably the artist we share the most sincere and elevated mutual appreciation for. It's difficult to know where to start with Loyle Carner, a man who I have gradually come to love extremely deeply over time and may love almost as much as Caroline, but I must try. 

I’ve been trying to distil why I like it so much. My initial feeling was that I like how he eschews a lot of the hyper-masculine, misogynist bullshit typically associated (by white people, thus unfairly) with modern hip-hop / rap (fancy cars, big asses, “drinking from the bottle” etc), but I actually think it's more than that. He offers a more fundamental vulnerability and openness that almost all artists and genres of music struggle to capture. He brings an honesty and vulnerability that I simply find incredibly endearing. Obviously most popular music is almost entirely based on empty sentiments (and there’s not necessarily anything wrong with that) but listening to his music it does make you wonder: why isn’t everyone just being honest and vulnerable? Perhaps very few people try because so few have the communication skill set to manage this.

Not only this, but it just feels very brave. Men are, as a general rule, bad at speaking about their feelings. For whatever complex and fucked up reason, this means that any attempt to talk about your feelings becomes an event fraught with pressure. “You don’t do this very often, so you best get it right!”, one might tell himself. However, fortunately, it appears to come very naturally to young Loyle. Talking about racism, ADHD, his mum, his son, his father, how much he loves his girlfriend: he’s just doing it. It must have taken an immense amount of courage to get this out into the world.

I don’t believe in idols or holding any one individual upon as the beacon of perfection, but there is a certain part of me that sees him as the flagship man, and makes me want to do better and be better; not just for myself, but for Caroline and whoever is in my life in the future. At the end of A Lasting Place, you can hear (what I assume to be) his partner reading out a poem by Kate Baer, entitled What Kind of Man, with his baby son cooing and babbling in the background. Every time I listen to it, this bit makes me want to cry. When we saw him live at Glastonbury in 2023, I spent most of the gig balling my eyes out, clinging onto Caroline. The live version of his songs are amazing (reimagined on this album should you wish to indulge), but - as you expect - the way he talks in-between songs about life and what’s behind his music makes it even more perfect.

Into My Arms - Nick Cave

As well as having a much better taste in music than me, Caroline is also substantially more musically talented; doing all the grades on piano and violin when she was younger. I learned this during lockdown when she was telling me about some beef she was having with her downstairs neighbours. Caroline had invested in a clavinova - effectively an electric piano - and was tootling about on it when she started to receive a barrage of aggressive texts about all the noise. Bear in mind these neighbours also used to complain when her and her housemates were “talking too loudly”, so the bar was quite low.

She told me she was playing Into My Arms when this unwanted barrage occurred, which - being a pleb - I had never heard of. I was vaguely aware of Nick Cave. In my mind he fell into the same category of older male singers with similar names: Nick Cave, Nick Drake, Neil Diamond (in fact, it’s just men whose names start with N). Ever since, Nick Cave has gone onto play a weirdly important role in our relationship; not necessarily because of his music, but because he’s just quite interesting. He had a big heroin addiction, has a very nuanced relationship with religion, and just generally thinks and writes incredibly thoughtfully about a number of things, including grief, love, loss, etc.  I won’t go into too much detail, but I would recommend the book Faith, Hope and Carnage, which is basically an extended interview between him and the journalist Sean O’Hagan, should you wish to learn more.

I don’t know his music very well at all, and have only really listened to his later stuff (his album Ghosteen, about the death of his teenage son, is genuinely extraordinary). However, I do know Into My Arms, and I think it's one of Caroline’s favourite songs. It's an incredibly beautiful bit of music, all about love, which seems fitting for the situation. Its surprisingly hard to find beautiful songs that sing positively about love. We wanted Caroline to walk down the aisle to this song, but apparently if you get married in a public building in the UK, all music has to be completely secular; no mention of god, religion etc; which Nick simply cannot and does not do. 

Regardless, it's great to have Nick in our life, and hopefully he shall remain there as we live out the rest of our lives together.