Marriage equality is a hustler's feeding frenzy of gold-diggers. I campaigned for marriage equality in Maryland because I believe we should have the right to it, but I personally don't want to get married. I don't want to imitate the traditions of heterosexual people. I hate weddings: they make me uneasy.

When I used to perform weddings, the image I always had was the image of a triangle, in which there are two partners and then there is this third force, this third being, that emerges out of the interaction of these two. The third one is the one that is the shared awareness that lies behind the two of them.

Everybody's got to do something... I'd been on my own since an early age and I thought I better find something to do to buy biscuits and stuff. From high school onwards I was earning my way with photography, one way or another, working in darkrooms and taking pictures of weddings, neighbors' children and so on.

It has to do a lot more than just twerking. It's feel good music; it makes people have a good time. It doesn't matter what type of situation they're in, we bounce all around New Orleans. Weddings, birthday parties, funerals. The whole nine yards, and it's a happy music, it turns people from a frown to a happy smile.

People love to play 'Baby, I Love Your Way' at their weddings. They even play it for births and deaths - whatever the occasion, it seems to fit. Over the years, it's been used in lots of movies, and it's been covered by other artists more than any of my songs. I've written a standard... which is pretty incredible to me.

Do I believe in coupling? Do I believe in commitment? Do I believe in co-parenting, raising children together, having a family, and growing old with someone? I absolutely believe in all of those things. I just don't believe that you need to be married to do that. I love going to weddings, though. I do love a good wedding.

I'm a firm believer that lighting affects mood, and twinkly lights on strings bring something magical to occasions ranging from concerts to weddings, though I'm fond of using them as year-round home decor. There's a reason why they're sometimes called fairy lights. When the night is right, there aren't any strings at all.

It's very nice to be asked to anybody's wedding. Particularly if it's the Prince of Wales. I learned a lot from it, which was to end early and get away. I suppose one would have to look back historically and see who other royals had at their weddings. Were there people at Queen Elizabeth's wedding who were common like myself?

I ran track in college. And that team, that all-lady team that I was on, I can remember just being so incredibly sad that I knew we were all going to leave each other after we graduated and that our lives would change. And even though I was the bridesmaid at all their weddings and stuff like that, it's just not the same, right?

I was one those kids who had books on them. Before weddings, Bar Mitzvahs, funerals and anything else where you're actually meant to not be reading, my family would frisk me and take the book away. If they didn't find it by this point in the procedure, I would be sitting over in that corner completely unnoticed just reading my book.

But once you've made a song and you put it out there, you don't own it anymore. The public own it. It's their song. It might be their song that they wake up to, or their song they have a shower to, or their song that they drive home to or their song they cry to, scream to, have babies to, have weddings to - like, it isn't your song anymore.

You can look at my books and not find particular joy on every page because, of course, what you want to write about is the difficulty of the human experience. You don't want to lie about things to make happy endings and weddings if they don't deserve to happen. But I would be lying if I didn't try to communicate some of the pleasure of being alive.

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