Jason Mraz w/ Colbie Caillat, "Lucky"

It was a pleasant surprise, to say the least, to see California’s willingness to not merely recognize but legalize same-sex marriages, and I was actually kind of afraid to say anything about it yesterday lest some last-minute legal challenge defer us once again. I understand that it's still a subject of debate for many, but at least it’s not the wedge issue it was in ’04. No one will accuse me or those I love of risking things for Obama.

My own proximity to marriage amounts to buying the Brooklyn Bridge — I’ll never get married, you know that’s not my scene — but I’m enough of a sap that I sometimes fantasize about having a Big Day and about being able to say and sing in full honesty and security, as Jason Mraz and his duet partner Colbie Caillat do on this new track, “Lucky I'm in love with my best friend. Lucky to have been where I have been. Lucky to be coming home again.”

Mraz, the writer of those words, is a wise man, a guru in a skateboarder’s body, a Bodhisattva with bedhead, and he deserves better on the charts and in the hearts than he’s gotten so far from the pop cognoscenti. He's just the kind of cornball we need, and I've been thinking We Sing. We Dance. We Steal Things. will be my #1 album of 2008 — and "Lucky" is my pride anthem of now.