Wedding Playlist by Lisa Williamson - All About Mia Blog Tour

I am very happy today to be taking part in the blog tour for UKYA book, All About Mia by Lisa Williamson!  I really loved Lisa's debut book, The Art of Being Normal and I'm hugely excited for All About Mia.  A story about sisters is a story that I will pretty much always want to read.  Not convinced? 

One family, three sisters.
GRACE, the oldest: straight-A student. 
AUDREY, the youngest: future Olympic swimming champion. 
And MIA, the mess in the middle. 
Mia is wild and daring, great with hair and selfies, and the undisputed leader of her friends – not attributes appreciated by her parents or teachers. 
When Grace makes a shock announcement, Mia hopes that her now-not-so-perfect sister will get into the trouble she deserves. 
But instead, it is Mia whose life spirals out of control – boozing, boys and bad behaviour – and she starts to realise that her attempts to make it All About Mia might put at risk the very things she loves the most.

Today Lisa is here to share with us all the All About Mia wedding playlist!  (Listen along to the actual music here while you read why Lisa chose each song) Weddings! They're so my favourite, even - especially - if dramatic things happen.  Over to you, Lisa... 

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Wedding Playlist by Lisa Williamson

I love a good wedding. Always have, probably always will. Ever since my beloved Auntie Joyce got married when I was seven and I wore a yellow dress and straw boater hat and ate so many sausage rolls I was almost sick, I've been hooked (seriously, it was one of the best days of my life). I've since been to more weddings than I can count and enjoyed every single one. I love having an excuse to dress up for once and stick on a pair of sparkly shoes. I love seeing all my mates wearing their best outfits and looking all shiny and smiley. I love watching the happy couple get the giggles exchanging their vows. I love that magical hour between the ceremony and the wedding breakfast where you get to stand around drinking prosecco on an empty stomach. I even love the speeches. But the thing I love most of all, the bit I really look forward to, is when the tables are pushed aside, the lights go down and it's time to dance.

Wedding DJs are generally considered the bottom of the DJ hierarchy. Which is madness. The perfect wedding playlist is a work of art and I’m prepared to have it out with anyone who thinks differently. I once went to a wedding where the groom (a self-confessed music snob) hired his mate (a fellow music snob) to DJ the reception. For the next three hours he played all his favourite records to a deserted dance floor, ignoring every single one of my requests. My disappointment was acute. There's a time and place for so-called 'cool' music and a wedding is neither. Weddings are about shared joy and nostalgia. They're about dancing like no one's watching. They're about doing the Macarena and the Locomotion and discovering you still know the routine to 'Saturday Night' by Wigfield. Wedding discos are the polar opposite of cool and this is why I love them so much. It’s also probably why I was so keen to write a wedding in All About Mia.

The wedding in question is that of Mia’s parents. Having become engaged as teenagers, twenty years later they finally get round to tying the knot. Unfortunately, their day doesn’t turn out as picture-perfect as they planned, largely thanks to the drunken antics of their middle daughter Mia. One thing that is on point though, is the disco.

I was delighted when my publisher liked my suggestion of including the wedding disco playlist in the back of the book. After much deliberation, here are the twelve songs I narrowed it down to:

Back for Good - Take That

This is Mia’s mum and dad’s first dance. The lyrics are actually a bit sad considering the happy occasion:

Got fist of pure emotion

Got a head of shattered dreams

Gotta leave it, gotta leave it all behind now

However, it was number one when they got together twenty years earlier and has been ‘their song’ ever since. Grace performs a version of it during the wedding ceremony, much to Mia’s annoyance.

I Wanna Dance With Somebody - Whitney Houston

Pretty much the perfect pop song, I think I’ve requested this at every single wedding I’ve ever been to. The second Whitney goes ‘woooooooo!’ over the opening bars, I’m in musical ecstasy. ‘How Will I Know’ (also by Whitney) has the same happifying effect.

A Little Respect - Erasure

I LOVE eighties music. It’s the music of my childhood and makes me feel instantly nostalgic for disco floors filled with dry ice and dancing rainbow lights. The bit when Andy Bell sings ‘I’m so in love with you’ gives me proper intense feels every single time.

Sex On Fire - Kings of Leon

A modern classic. Best played towards the end of the night, by which point the female guests have kicked off their heels and the blokes have abandoned their suit jackets and wrapped their ties round their foreheads like Rambo and everyone’s jumping around like idiots.

Single Ladies (Put A Ring On It) - Beyoncé

No explanation required. Dance routine compulsory.  

Got My Mind Set On You - George Harrison

I picked this one in tribute to Mia’s mum and dad and their epic twenty-year engagement. The lyrics were just too perfect to ignore:

It's gonna take time

A whole lot of precious time

It's gonna take patience and time, um

To do it, to do it, to do it, to do it, to do it

To do it right child

Walking On Sunshine - Katrina and the Waves

Who can resist that beat? Not me. I asked a few friends for their favourite wedding disco songs and this was fellow YA author Non Pratt’s excellent contribution. This is another one you can’t help but dance like a crazy person to (the only way to dance at a wedding in my opinion).

We Are Family - Sister Sledge

‘We are family, I got all my sisters with me!’ The perfect soundtrack to a story about three sisters, this was a no-brainer. In an alternative version of the Campbell-Richardson wedding, where things don’t go completely tits-up, I like to imagine Mia, Grace and Audrey having a ball dancing to this together.

You Make My Dreams Come True – Hall & Oates

My friend Dale is a wedding DJ and was kind enough to share his most played songs with me, of which this was one of them. Indeed, it featured prominently at Dale’s own wedding. Immortalised in the film 500 Days of Summer, this is total musical sunshine and makes me smile every time I hear it.

Higher and Higher (Your Love Keeps Lifting Me) – Jackie Wilson

Romantic and uplifting with a great beat, this is THE perfect song to play at a wedding.

You and Me Song – The Wannadies

Another song designed for jumping up and down to with your mates. The unassuming verses make the rousing chorus all the more joyous to yell along with. A cheesy must.

Shake It Off – Taylor Swift

Mia’s anthem. If you read the book, you’ll probably work out why.