Though the narrators of Love Will Tear Us Apart are all honored guests at Lea and Dan’s big, fat Irish-Italian wedding, they have way too much on their minds to give much thought to the bride and groom: things like Cort’s dying mother, Alex’s coke addiction, Shawn’s music career, and Ben’s disappointment at the absence of rap music at the wedding reception…

ALEX
Click here to open up Alex's playlist.		I hadn’t planned on this. Running late, I mean. Everyone can think what they want, whatever, but it was not some kind of subconscious rebellion on my part to passive-aggressively protest a marriage that in no way, shape, or form should be happening… I know what everyone’s thinking – it’s easy to know what everyone’s thinking in a situation like this: that I stayed up all night doing blow or whatever rather than packing for the wedding or otherwise preparing for my bridesmaidly duties. And they’re totally wrong. One hundred percent wrong. Okay, to be totally fair, they’re maybe only 73 percent wrong, because I did stay up all night doing blow, but that’s totally beside the point. That’s, like, a personal life choice. And I’m working on it, you know?

BEN
Click here to open up Ben's playlist.		Listen, don’t get me wrong. I know this is not about picking the song that will allow me to do my signature belly slide across the dance floor (Meatloaf’s magnum opus “Paradise by the Dashboard Light”) or the jam that was playing in the background when Tammy Paglinaro and I lost our respective virginities in the backseat of my CRX (“Here Comes the Hotstepper” by Ine Kamoze). But that doesn’t mean it’s going to be easy. See, the toughest part of being Dan O’Shaughnessy’s best man is understanding that it’s not about me (or my belly slide, awesome as it may be). It’s not about me at all. Which, when you get right down to it, is also the toughest part of being Dan O’Shaughnessy’s best friend.

CORT
Click here to open up Cort's playlist.		A friend of mine who calls himself Uncle John but who made me swear on Jerry’s soul that I’d tell no one that his real name is Blaine once told me that certain indigenous peoples won’t have their pictures taken because they believe that a camera has the power to steal the soul. I know by now to take most of what Uncle John says with a grain of salt… but I like that bit about the camera, I see the truth in that. Lea’s face is so caked up with make-up that it’s like she’s someone else, she’s this bride-creature imprisoned in a cage of white lace and flowers and something borrowed, something blue, and I know they do the make-up for the album, not for the day, like she’s an actress playing a bride, and maybe that’s all she is, I think, as the photographer snaps another one of her red mouth grins and then is all, Now, let’s have one with the maid of honor and I put on a big grin too and tell myself I’m happy for Lea, and I am, but I’m sorry for her too, that she feels like she’s gotta put on this big show as if she has to prove her love, or prove Danny’s love, to any of us, when she doesn’t have to do anything of the kind.

SHAWN
Click here to open up Shawn's playlist.		That’s the thing about these shitty medium-sized towns (which are even worse than shitty little towns because you don’t even have to know everyone to know exactly what everyone is like)… When the town calls you back it doesn’t give a f*** about what it’s pulling you from. Stuff that, like, involves your, you know, career, not that anyone would understand. But you understand. You understand that your being here is just a foreshadowing of your eventual defeat. What’s making you nervous isn’t the fact that you’re playing a wedding, it’s the fact that you’re going to be playing weddings for the rest of your life.