Help me find a song for the Father/Daughter dance at my wedding.

June 23, 2006 5:32 AM

Help me find a song for the Father/Daughter dance at my wedding. [MI]

Yes, I know there are thousands of Father/Daughter song suggestions on the Internet, but here's the problem: While my dad and I are close, we are not mushy touchy-feely people. The ever popular Butterfly Kisses song is so not us. My dad is a Fleetwood Mac fan, but neither of us feels like Landslide is a good choice. Lyrics are very important to me, and I want to avoid using something generic like What A Wonderful World. Suggestions?

posted by geeky to human relations (33 comments total)

I'm not saying these aren't high on the cheese factor, but we had the parents pick what songs they wanted. My dad chose "I hope you dance" by (I believe) Martina McBride to dance with me, and my mother-in-law chose "I knew I loved you before I met you" by Savage Garden for her dance with my Mr. (I'm not crazy about the song, but I did like the lyrics in my song w/Dad.)
posted by ferociouskitty at 5:35 AM on June 23, 2006

I don't care for this song, but my brother and his stepdaughter danced at her wedding to "Unforgettable" by Nat King Cole and, thanks to the wonders of modern technology, his daughter Natalie Cole, and I had to admit it was a pretty effect.
posted by orange swan at 5:43 AM on June 23, 2006

My wife and her dad wanted to dance to "Heartbreak Hotel." I thought that was a really good choice.

It didn't happen in the end, but that was because the DJ somehow accidentally brought "Hound Dog" instead. We had a backup song by Ray Charles, though, "If I Could," which was also very nice.
posted by BackwardsCity at 5:51 AM on June 23, 2006

Ditto "Unforgettable". My wife picked it for our father/daughter and son/mother dances, and it was perfect.
posted by Plutor at 5:51 AM on June 23, 2006

Paul Simon's Father and Daughter is very good, but I'd recommend getting the version from the (can't recall) soundtrack rather than the Simon/Eno album -- the album version sounds overproduced.
posted by unixrat at 6:00 AM on June 23, 2006

John Mayer's "Daughters"? Its a nice song and would be easy to dance to.
posted by jtfowl0 at 6:03 AM on June 23, 2006

Ooh... Unforgettable would be fantastic. I third it.
posted by arcticwoman at 6:06 AM on June 23, 2006

"Slide It In" by Whitesnake
posted by ed\26h at 6:34 AM on June 23, 2006

We did "What a Wonderful World". My dad picked it.
posted by dpx.mfx at 6:36 AM on June 23, 2006

I went through this recently too. Unforgettable is a great song, but I must say, I feel like everyone on earth uses it for the father/daughter dance now. I ended up just picking a song i knew my father liked to listen to (that Don't Know Why song by Norah Jones(?))
posted by theantikitty at 6:44 AM on June 23, 2006

John Mayer's "Daughters"? Kind of a newer song, but good and would be easy to dance to.
posted by jtfowl0 at 6:56 AM on June 23, 2006

Ack. Sorry about the double post.
posted by jtfowl0 at 6:57 AM on June 23, 2006

Co-owner of a DJ company here...browsing our files, here's what some recent clients have chosen:

"The Way You Look Tonight" (Tony Bennett)
"I Get a Kick Out of You" (Frank Sinatra)
"Have I Told You Lately" (Van Morrison)
"In My Life" (Beatles)
"My Girl" (Temptations or Otis Redding)
"When You Wish Upon a Star" (Nat King Cole or Billy Joel)
"Turn Around" (Harry Belafonte or Kingston Trio)
"You've Got a Friend" (James Taylor)
"The Rainbow Connection" (Kermit the Frog)
"Little Miss Magic" (Jimmy Buffett)
"Moon River" (Andy Williams)
"Somewhere Over the Rainbow" (Israel Kamakawiwo'ole)
"Isn't She Lovely" (Stevie Wonder)

I'd say probably 30% of our clients are choosing "What a Wonderful World" or "Unforgettable" -- those are by far the most popular. But if it makes you feel better, almost everyone we work with has just as much trouble as you are having coming up with this song.
posted by justonegirl at 7:00 AM on June 23, 2006

I'm, at best, wary of "Daughters." Maybe its just the crazy radioplay it got, but I have some kind of a gut reaction against it. "Dance" by LeAnn Womack, the song the first responder referenced, seems like a much more pleasant lyrical choice. It isn't as specific to the father/daughter relationship, but it seems like a good, optimistic song in general for a wedding.
posted by Alterscape at 7:07 AM on June 23, 2006

Oh, seconding Alterscape on "Daughters." It's been a while since I listened to it but doesn't it have a few lines about a father leaving his daughter behind?
posted by justonegirl at 7:10 AM on June 23, 2006

On The Sopranos, Johnny Sack had them play Daddy's Little Girl
posted by Neiltupper at 7:24 AM on June 23, 2006

Yeah, I'm going to say I'm not a big fan of "Daughters" so I won't be using that song. "Dance" is a possibility - I do like the lyrics of it, and it's not super mushy. Unforgettable is ok, but I feel like it's generic like What A Wonderful World.

Keep 'em coming!
posted by geeky at 7:27 AM on June 23, 2006

Father-daughter dances are so sappy and everyone ends up picking from about three different songs so no one's sounds "special". I say you go for something completely different, like The Hokey Pokey. Itsy Bitsy Spider? Ice Ice Baby?

My dad does not want to dance in public, so I jokingly told him that we could have a father-daughter pie-eating contest instead of a dance at my hypothetical future wedding.
posted by srah at 7:28 AM on June 23, 2006

A less common but great choice: Dancing on Daddy's Shoes by Leon Redbone. It's on the Whistling in the Wind album.
posted by j-dawg at 7:33 AM on June 23, 2006

We used "Teach Your Children" (Crosby, Stills, & Nash)
posted by candyland at 8:34 AM on June 23, 2006

We danced to "My Girl." It was a banjo and piano-player version of "My Girl," (our reception was on a riverboat) so it sounded nothing at all like Otis Redding. In fact, I picked out the song as a surprise for my dad, and had him try to guess at the first few bars, but he couldn't. It was quite a plucky-plucky-pluck experience. Oh, well.
posted by printchick at 8:43 AM on June 23, 2006

If you can stomach Celine Dion, "Because You Loved Me" is a good one. We used that in our wedding.
posted by cass at 8:50 AM on June 23, 2006

We used "Our Love is Here to Stay" (the Ella Fitzgerald/Louis Armstrong version). Old school, sweet, not too sappy, and a breeze to dance to.
posted by LittleMissCranky at 8:58 AM on June 23, 2006

"Dance" is a possibility - I do like the lyrics of it, and it's not super mushy. Unforgettable is ok, but I feel like it's generic like What A Wonderful World.

"Dance" is the definition of mushy. In the dictionary under mushy there is a little lyrical sheet to "dance". If you don't think "dance" is super mushy, you probably shouldn't trust yourself in your opinion of what is mushy and what is not.

Almost all the songs you're getting in this thread are cliched. They are going to be mushy, that's why people pick them over and over again. So you wanting a non mushy song and people giving you unforgettable and what a wonderful world and every other song used a million times is not going to help.

You're going to have to pick a song not in a DJ's 'classic wedding song' list. That said, I'd go with "you're the reason our kids are ugly".
posted by justgary at 8:59 AM on June 23, 2006

"God Only Knows" by The Beach Boys. Seemed to fit my relationship with my father quite well without being sappy like "Butterfly Kisses".
posted by clpage at 9:08 AM on June 23, 2006 [1 favorite]

justgary - The lyrics in "Dance" are general life advice type lyrics, which would work fine. Another example of a song I think might work is Natalie Merchant's "Kind & Generous". What I am trying to avoid is the overly sappy lyrics of Butterfly Kisses, which describes a father/daughter relationship entirely unlike the one my dad and I have. Perhaps sappy isn't the right word to use.

I'm perfectly fine with picking a song not in the DJs "classic wedding song" list. In fact, that was kind of the whole point of the question.
posted by geeky at 10:01 AM on June 23, 2006

Cyndi Lauper. "Oh, daddy dear, you know you're still number one..."
posted by Faint of Butt at 10:12 AM on June 23, 2006

10,000 Maniacs - Trouble Me

Sinead O'Connor - Daddy I'm Fine (nontraditional, oh yeah)
posted by fuzzbean at 10:38 AM on June 23, 2006

How about Luther Vandross "Dance with my Father" or Bob Seger "We've got Tonight" or my personal pick would be Otis Redding's "That's How Strong My Love Is" because it's not mushy, not sad, it's not long and drawn out, and I think it works well for father/daughter.
posted by Ugh at 12:20 PM on June 23, 2006

Ben Folds, 'Gracie' (lyrics here). Downside is the proper name (which I assume doesn't happen to match yours), but plusses are huge sentiment without any sentimentality and general loveliness.
posted by daisyace at 6:20 PM on June 23, 2006

If you're dad is a Fleetwood Mac fan, how about "Songbird"?

For you, there'll be no more crying,
For you, the sun will be shining,
And I feel that when I'm with you,
It's alright, I know it's right

To you, I'll give the world
to you, I'll never be cold
'Cause I feel that when I'm with you,
It's alright, I know it's right.

And the songbirds are singing,
Like they know the score,
And I love you, I love you, I love you,
Like never before.

And I wish you all the love in the world,
But most of all, I wish it from myself.

And the songbirds keep singing,
Like they know the score,
And I love you, I love you, I love you,
Like never before, like never before.
posted by platinum at 4:32 PM on June 24, 2006

Thanks for the "Songbird" suggestion, platinum! I haven't heard that one before, and it definitely has potential.

daisyace, I happen to be a huge Ben Folds fan. I thought about using "Gracie", but I haven't decided if I can get over the song being about Gracie when that's not my name (as you rightly assumed).
posted by geeky at 9:02 PM on June 25, 2006

If you want to go silly, I once saw a wedding where the bride and her dad danced to the original Muppet Babies song, from the flashback sequence in the movie The Muppets Take Manhattan. This is not the same song from the Muppet Babies TV series. It's called "I'm Gonna Always Love You" and has the unforgettable repeated lyric, "Mama, gaga, boop boop, sha-wah-wah". It's cheerful and cute and if your family feels uncomfortable with being mushy, it's a good way to get around that, and get everyone laughing at the same time.

Lyrics (and a large downloadable .wav file of the song) can be found at:

http://www.whysanity.net/muppets/mbaby.html

It doesn't specifically refer to the relationship between a father and daughter, but the general idea is there.
posted by gillyflower at 12:07 PM on June 30, 2006