Three, De La Soul once told us, is the magic number. Whether Blink-182 drummer Travis Barker and reality TV star Kourtney Kardashian were influenced at all by this nugget of Daisy Age hip-hop wisdom when choosing to have not one, not two, but, yes, three separate wedding ceremonies - in Las Vegas (April 3), Santa Barbara (May 15) and Portofino, Italy (May 22) - in 2022 we cannot say for sure, but whatever their motivations and reasoning, good times were apparently had by all on each of these auspicious occasions.
It could, perhaps, have simply been that, for his third marriage, Barker decided that the third time's a charm, but whatever, let's not get bogged down in speculation.
Anyways, it's one thing sharing your special day (s) with friends and family and your nearest and dearest, but in the modern age, is a wedding (weddings) even a wedding (weddings) if it's not monetised for a TV special?
Not for us to say, but mercifully, thanks to the wonders of smart phones, hi-def cameras, and the good people at Hulu, ordinary civilians too can now share in the joy and wonder of the third instalment of 2022's most high profile romantic triptych, as documented in 'Til Death Do Us Part, billed as "an intimate family event full of beautiful moments."
But wait, there's more!
Barker and Kardashian have also taken the time to speak to RollingStone.com about the bespoke 13-track wedding playlist which features in the show, revealing exactly why songs by Bright Eyes, Etta James, Elvis Presley, The Cure and - awwww - Blink-182 are close to their entwined hearts.
The interview also reveals that the pair fell in love to a Pink Floyd song, namely Wish You Were Here, the title track of the English band's ninth album, released in 1975. Dealing with mental instability, and a refusal to engage with reality, the song is often viewed as a tribute to the late Syd Barrett, although lyricist Roger Waters has also revealed that it also has a more personal meaning.
“All [my] songs are encouraging me; I guess I write them for me,” Waters explains in the 2012 documentary, Pink Floyd: The Story Of Wish You Were Here. “It’s to encourage myself not to accept a lead role in a cage, but to go on demanding of myself that I keep auditioning for the walk-on part in the war, ‘cause that’s where I want to be. I wanna be in the trenches. I don’t want to be at headquarters; I don’t wanna be sitting in a hotel somewhere. I wanna be engaged.”
“This is the song we fell in love to,” Kourtney Kardashian tells Rolling Stone.
It turns out that one night Kardashian asked Barker to name his five favourite albums. Dodging the question - rude, but whatever - Barker apparently opted instead to let his new love hear one of his all-time favourite songs, the aforementioned Pink Floyd classic.
“It was three in the morning after making love, completely naked in bed, and it was one of those moments where you’re like, staring at someone, and it dawns on you that you’re falling in love with the person,” the drummer says. “I’ve listened to that song since I was really, really young, and I love that it’s something I fell in love with her to.”
So that's how "Two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl, year after year" became as one. And good luck to the pair of them, we say.
