Good music for home movies?

Lazyweb, I call upon your collective experience and wisdom. This weekend I edited family vacation video into a real movie. The hardest part by far was picking the background music. The test I used was simple.

If a mom is shown a picture of her children while listening to the song, will she burst into tears of happiness in less than ten seconds?

I found one candidate: You're My Best Friend by Queen. This got Mary going in about four seconds.

Another contender: Cast Your Fate To The Wind, Vince Guaraldi Trio. Evocative of childhood Charlie Brown TV specials because it's the only non-Charlie Brown hit song from the band that did all the Charlie Brown music. This one set the stage for Mary's breakdown but didn't actually cause it.

But after that, I was left with filler. I went with The Brazilianaire by Cujo, and then Follow Your Bliss by the B-52s.

Now, to be honest, I have other criteria that make the selection harder.

  • No Celine Dion or anything in a collection including a Celine Dion album. (Yes, this means if there's a Celine Dion album in your music collection, you and your entire family are disqualified from expressing an opinion. I'm sorry about this. Trust me, it's for the good of the country.)
  • No songs by any band having an American city or state as a name (Boston, Chicago, Kansas, etc.).
  • Remember, these are family movies. Thus, no love songs that include a description of what's going to happen when the singer finally gets some private time with the subject of the song.

Not every song needs to be a trigger, of course. But I'd like to have more than one in my arsenal. Suggestions?

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This page contains a single entry by Mike Tsao published on December 15, 2008 9:48 AM.

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