"Wedding Song (There Is Love)" is a song written by Noel Paul Stookey in the fall of 1969 and first performed at the wedding of Peter Yarrow - Stookey's co-member of Peter, Paul and Mary - to Mary Beth McCarthy at St Mary's Catholic Church in Willmar MN: Stookey was best man at the ceremony which took place in the evening of October 18, 1969.
Shortly after his Christian conversion, Stookey was asked by Yarrow
to "...bless our wedding with a song". According to Stookey "the melody
and the words [of "Wedding Song"] arrived simultaneously and in response
to a direct prayer asking God how the divine could be present at
Peter’s wedding." Drawing almost word for word from the Bible passage
Matthew 18:20, the original lyric is "I am now to be among you at the
calling of your hearts; rest assured this troubadour is acting on My
part. The union of your spirits here has caused Me to remain for
whenever two or more of you are gathered in My name, There am I...There
is Love." Concerned that guests at the wedding might misinterpret his
intention, "I" was changed to "He", in both recorded and performed
versions until 1990 when the original lyric was 'officially' restored.
The first two lines of the song's second verse: "A man shall leave
his mother and a woman leave her home/ And they shall travel on to where
the two shall be as one", is largely a paraphrase of the text of
Genesis 2:24: "Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be
joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh." Believing he could
not take personal credit for composing "The Wedding Song", Stookey set
up the Public Domain Foundation which since 1971 has received the song's
songwriting and publishing royalties for charitable distribution.
"Peter, Paul and Mary perform "Wedding Song (There Is Love)" live at
their 25th anniversary concert in 1986. Now, two and a half decades
later, in celebration of the 50th anniversary of the formation of the
group in the famed Greenwich Village, this joyous yet deeply moving live
concert is being first released on DVD by Shout! Factory."
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