July 04, 2003

HAPPINESS THWARTED

Soon to appear on the Fox network’s World’s Crappiest Weddings:

A pair of newlyweds in China have won a refund for their wedding banquet after sad songs were played throughout the festivities.

As the couple toasted their marriage with guests at a restaurant in Keqiao, Hangzhou, Zhejiang province, morose Chinese songs including You Took Away My Woman and Why Do You Love Someone Else Secretly were played in the background.

As opposed to upbeat Chinese songs like Please Help Me Conceal My Second Child From The Authorities and the evergreen Oh, Great. Rice Again.

Posted by Tim Blair at July 4, 2003 05:28 AM
Comments

That was quite possibly the funniest thing I have ever read.

Posted by: Bill at July 4, 2003 at 05:34 AM

That was quite possibly the funniest thing I have ever read.

Posted by: Bill at July 4, 2003 at 05:34 AM

And I'm an idiot.

Posted by: Bill at July 4, 2003 at 05:35 AM

No, seriously.

Posted by: Bill at July 4, 2003 at 05:35 AM

At my Brother-in-law's wedding as the couple were leaving the band played:

"If you can't be with the one you love, yeah, love the one you're with, love the one you're with"

Worst couple leaving a wedding song. ever.

Posted by: James Dudek at July 4, 2003 at 06:08 AM


Not Steven Stills' best work, either.

Posted by: Andrew at July 4, 2003 at 06:41 AM

Tim, can we get the words of You Took Away My Woman? It could be my theme song.

Posted by: Fred at July 4, 2003 at 10:04 AM

Help, help, theft, theft.

Posted by: d at July 4, 2003 at 11:02 AM

I thought "You Took Away My Woman" was the perfect peasant-and-eastern song. Then the chairman of the local party council pointed out that there was nothing in it about Mama, or rice, or tractors, or giant-letter posters, or informants, or production quotas. So I sat down and wrote another verse:

I was harvesting rice the day Mama informed on me
So I continued labroing valiantly to meet my production quota
But before I could draw a giant-letter poster denouncing her
She got run over by a danged old tractor.

And Comrade Liu had to admit that now I'd written the perfect peasant-and-eastern song.

Posted by: Paul Zrimsek at July 4, 2003 at 11:53 AM

Paul, now that is quite possibly the funniest thing I have ever read. Sorry Bill, sorry Tim.

Posted by: slatts at July 4, 2003 at 01:36 PM


My missus went to a... erm... bogan wedding a few years ago.

"Good Riddance (Time Of Your Life)" by Green Day was the theme song. I shit you not.

Probably because they heard it as the promo song for the last episode of Seinfeld or something. Or because "I hope you had the time of your life" was the only lyric that had sunk into their brains? Or maybe they were getting mixed up with The Hoodoo Guru’s “all the good times we had we’ll have again” song?

I dunno. Funny story, but.

Apparently there were a few cringes, nods, and knowing smirks amongst a small percentage of the guests when the song got cranked up.

Posted by: Big Ramifications at July 4, 2003 at 01:52 PM

My favourite peasant-and-eastern band is The Shanxi
Chicks.

Posted by: tim at July 4, 2003 at 03:42 PM

The Shanxi Chicks! I still have that photo spread they did for Industrial Vanguard magazine. You've seen it-- the one where they're posing naked with the ideograms for "Capitalist Roader", "Wrecker", and "Disloyal to the Agricultural Goals of Sichuan Planning Council" painted on their bods.

You know what happens when you play a peasant-and-eastern song backwards? You get taken out of the torture cell.

Posted by: Paul Zrimsek at July 4, 2003 at 03:55 PM


Don't forget the Dixie Chimps.

Posted by: Big Ramifications at July 4, 2003 at 04:07 PM

There's also:
Ai Lee in Chains
Fu Fighters
Tiananmen at Work
Hu Ti & the Blowfish
The Chemical Brothers

North Korea has Run DMZ and the Fine Young Cannibals.

Posted by: scott h. at July 4, 2003 at 06:21 PM

Excuse me, I'm sorry. The Chemical Brothers are not a Chinese peasant band. They are a now defunct Iraqi band. Sorry about that.

Posted by: scott h. at July 4, 2003 at 06:22 PM

Don't forget WANG CHUNG

Posted by: Yobbo at July 5, 2003 at 04:11 AM

at the fireworks we went to last night (red bank, nj) they played excerpts from the following songs on the radio as part of the 'simulcast':

'glory days'..."they'll pass you by"
'imagine' (barf)
'give peace a chance' (hyper-barf)

i could not believe it.

Posted by: Mr. Bingley at July 5, 2003 at 03:34 PM

On my hit parade, they'll never depose "Diligently Carrying Dung Up the Mountainside for
Chairman Mao."

That's Dung as in shite, not Dung Shop-Ping. A real song, too.

Posted by: Harry Eagar at July 7, 2003 at 05:26 AM