Songs for the occasion

Not the four-line one everyone mumbles. A real song with their name in it and the story only your family knows.

Written from how you met and what you promised. Order early and there is time to learn the words.

One year or fifty. We write it as a letter across the time between, which is usually the part that undoes people.

Say the thing you have been circling for a while, in three minutes, with a melody carrying it.

She does not need another candle. She would like to hear, out loud and set to music, what you have never quite managed to say.

Songs work on fathers precisely because they cannot interrupt one. Write it and press play at dinner.

One song for the whole family, or one each. Order early so it is ready before the day.

A lullaby with their name in it, written before they can hear it, kept for when they can.

The years of work behind the ten seconds on the stage, set to whatever they have been playing all summer.

A song from the whole team, with the in-jokes, the nicknames and the thing that happened in 2009.

Written so the question lands on the last line.

Written gently and with care. For funerals, anniversaries and the quiet days after.

Harder to ignore than a message and much harder to fake. Say what happened and what you would do differently.

A teacher, a nurse, a neighbour, a friend who showed up. Specific gratitude, sung.

The best ones, honestly. Nothing to celebrate, nobody expecting anything, an ordinary Wednesday and a song about them.