what will they play at your funeral?

[topaz]

keyne  found this article on unusual choices for funeral songs. I am reposting it here because, well, fuck the AP:

Hymns are being replaced at funerals in one Australian city by popular rock classics like Led Zeppelin's "Stairway to Heaven" and AC/DC's "Highway to Hell," a cemetery manager said Wednesday.

At Centennial Park, the largest cemetery and crematorium in the southern city of Adelaide, only two hymns still rank among its top 10 most popular funeral songs: "Amazing Grace" and "Abide With Me."

Leading the funeral chart is crooner Frank Sinatra's classic hit "My Way," followed by Louis Armstrong's version of "Wonderful World," a statement said.

The Led Zeppelin and AC/DC rock anthems rank outside the top 10, but have gained ground in recent years as more Australians give up traditional Christian hymns.

"Some of the more unusual songs we hear actually work very well within the service because they represent the person's character," Centennial Park chief executive Bryan Elliott said.

Among other less conventional choices were "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life" by the Monty Python comedy team, "Ding Dong the Witch is Dead," "Hit the Road Jack," "Another One Bites the Dust" and "I'll Sleep When I'm Dead."

This led us to ponder what songs we'd like to play at our funerals.  Some of my choices include:

• "Fifty Ways to Leave Your Lover"
• "Danke Schoen"
• "In The Jailhouse Now" (either the Soggy Bottom Boys or Johnny Cash)
• "Old Time Religion" (only the Pete Seeger version, of course)

I'm also thinking something by Madness, like "One Step Beyond" or "Bed and Breakfast Man", but not sure about that.

Edit: and how could I have forgotten?  Tom Lehrer's "We Will All Go Together When We Go," of course!

What do you want them to play at your funeral?

Comments

[inahandbasket]

Fascinating! I'm always intrigued by funerals and the choices made for them, not really in a morbid way but more in an anthropological way. (That would have made a neat undergrad thesis, too bad I didn't think of it 11-12 years ago. oh well.)

I'm going to go hash through my music collection and see what I can come up with.

[beah.livejournal.com]

There was a class I almost took in undergrad called "Death and Dying" that dealt with, among other things funeral traditions across time and cultures. I can't remember if it was anthro or ancient history, but I'm pretty sure the prof was the Medieval History guy.

Off the top of my head...

[anotherjen.livejournal.com]

"One Last Look Around the House Before We Go" by Kate Bush.

[qnetter]

A dear friend's opened with the disco "Begin the Beguine" and closed with "Can You Feel the Love Tonight"...

[qwrrty.livejournal.com]

That's exactly the spirit I want to evoke.

[fj.livejournal.com]

Just remember when choosing: even if it is about you, the service is actually not for you, since you are already dead.

[fj.livejournal.com]

I got curious what that would sound like. The 'best' one I found was the Julio Iglesias version. Nothing's smoother.

http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewAlbum?i=209564252&id=209564232&s=143444

[browngirl.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't mind "Seasons of Love" or "I'll Cover You" from RENT. Hardly original, but they're from a work I love and they'd fit my personality, and that's what matters.

When I Go...

[happyfunpaul.livejournal.com]

"When I Go" (Dave Carter) has become something of a traditional choice when mourning filkers. I'd certainly like it for my own funeral. ("Julian of Norwich" is also a common choice but I don't myself think of it as a funeral song.)

Among more classical choices, I've always liked Albinoni's "Adagio in G minor".

I could probably think of more if I put my mind to it. Maybe I should, I'm turning 40 in two days. Death is near! :-)

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

Nuphy wants the final fuge from Verdi's Falstaff:

Tutto nel mondo é burla.
L'uom é nato burlone,
La fede in cor gli ciurla,
Gli ciurla la ragione.
Tutti gabbati! Irride
L'un l'altro ogni mortal.
Ma ride ben chi ride
La risata final.

("All the world's a joke / Man is born a joker / Within his addled head / his brains are in a churn / We all are fools! / And each laughs at one another / But he laughs best who has / the last laugh.")

Hard to top that!

[qwrrty.livejournal.com]

That is an excellent choice! It reminds me in a way of Lee Hays' In Dead Earnest (http://www.peteseeger.net/indeadearnest.htm):

If I should die before I wake,
All my bone and sinew take
Put me in the compost pile
To decompose me for a while.

Worms, water, sun will have their way,
Returning me to common clay
All that I am will feed the trees
And little fishes in the seas.

When radishes and corn you munch,
You may be having me for lunch
And then excrete me with a grin,
Chortling, "There goes Lee again."

[harimad.livejournal.com]

New Orleans Jazz funeral.

[qwrrty.livejournal.com]

WIN.

[harimad.livejournal.com]

Supplemented by Lee Hays' In Dead Earnest (thanks for the reminder) because I would like to be put directly into the soil - if there's anything left after donation and dissection.

[catya.livejournal.com]

they play music at funerals? :)

(EDIT: i'm half serious - i'm not sure i've ever been to a not-jewish funeral)

[innerdoggie.livejournal.com]

This book (http://www.amazon.com/How-Perfect-Stranger-Essential-Religious/dp/1893361675) was written by a fellow who was going to his first non-Jewish funeral and didn't know what to expect or how to behave.

[keyne.livejournal.com]

That's marvelous. I ordered it.

[innerdoggie.livejournal.com]

I haven't gotten it yet myself, so let me know how it is.

[feste-sylvain.livejournal.com]

Ripple, the Grateful Dead

Hymn, Ultravox

Life'll Kill Ya, Warren Zevon

Last Dance, Donna Summer

Free Bird, Lynyrd Skynyrd

If I leave here tomorrow
Would you still remember me
For I must be trav'ling on now
'Cause there's too many places I've got to see

But if I stayed here with you girl
Things just couldn't be the same
'Cause I'm as free as a bird now
And this bird you'll never change

[innerdoggie.livejournal.com]

The Prelude from Bach's Prelude & Fugue in C sharp major from the Well-Tempered Clavier, Book II (BWV 872)

But I do like the New Orleans idea ...

[crouchback.livejournal.com]

Isn't is grand, boys (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Beaml4y2yL8), by the Clancy Brothers.

I'd want a couple of hymns, too, but that song would have to be played right before they torch my remains and shove 'em out onto Lake Michigan. (Yes, I want a Viking funeral.)

[porcinea.livejournal.com]

Phil Ochs, "When I'm Gone".

All my days won't be dances of delight when I'm gone,
And the sands will be shifting from my sight when I'm gone.
Can't add my name into the fight while I'm gone,
So I guess I'll have to do it while I'm here.

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

If they throw me a funeral, i will rise from my ashes and start slapping people.

[fj.livejournal.com]

If you are rising from ashes that was one confused funeral.

[keyne.livejournal.com]

I went to a funeral yesterday that involved ashes. Is that atypical in Europe?

[fj.livejournal.com]

I've always been in linguistic locales where cremations and funerals were considered two very distinct concepts.

[(Anonymous)]

Coming from a generic western, mostly-christian-influenced milieu, I understood the funeral to be what was at the graveside and the memorial to be what was elsewhere. Most people don't want to be at the actual cremation - too explicit and there are a lot of steps to be taken so it takes a while - so they go to the memorial or the wake. Wakes weren't part of my direct awareness but I'm under the impression they're held at a residence, as is sitting shiva.

[harimad.livejournal.com]

that anonymous post was me.

[mizarchivist]

I liked fese_sylvain's Ripple- one of my favorites, so that goes on my list. But from mine:

An Ani song- probably 32 flavors
KT Tunstall's Suddenly I See
John Prine Please Don't Bury Me for comedic effect?

I'd probably be able to come up with about 20 songs if I sat down and thought about it.

[moominmolly.livejournal.com]

Cole Porter, "Just One Of Those Things (http://www2.uol.com.br/cante/lyrics/Cole_Porter_-_Just_one_of_those_things.htm)":


It was just one of those things,
just one of those crazy flings.
One of those bells that now and then rings,
just one of those things.
It was just one of those nights,
just one of those fabulous flights.
A trip to the moon on gossamer wings,
just one of those things.
If we'd thought of it, 'bout the end of it,
when we started painting the town,
We'd have been aware that our love affair
was too hot not to cool down.
So goodbye, dear, and Amen,
here's hoping we'll meet now and then.
It was great fun
but it was just one of those things.

[primal-pastry.livejournal.com]

La Vie Boheme

Feeling Good - Nina Simone

Bumble Tuna - Mephiskapheles

Down to the River to Pray - Sandy Posey

Get it While You Can - Janis Joplin

Come to the Dance - Emerald Rose

Those are just the during the warm up. What I want is a drum circle. I want people to dance and drink and fall down laughing in joy.

[lady-mishegas.livejournal.com]

The Indigo Girls - Everything In Its Time
Remember everything I told you,
keep it in your heart like a stone
And when the winds have blown things round and back again
what was once your pain will be your home
All around the table the white-haired men have gathered
Spilling their sons' blood like table wine
Remember everything in its own time

The music whispers you in urgency
hold fast to that languageless connection
A thread of known that was unknown and unseen seen
dangling from inside the fifth direction
Boys around the table mapping out their strategies
Kings all of mountains one day dust
A lesson learned a loving God and things in their own time
In nothing more do I trust

We own nothing, nothing is ours
Not even love so fierce it burns like baby stars
But this poverty is our greatest gift
The weightlessness of us as things around begin to shift

Remember everything I told you,
keep it in your heart like a stone
And when the winds have blown things round and back again
What was once your pain will be your home
Everything in its own time
Everything in its own time

Is that sappy and lame?

[pulito.livejournal.com]

Charles Ives' "Unanswered Question".

[mrf-arch.livejournal.com]

I still like "I'll Sleep When I'm Dead"

[malefica-v.livejournal.com]

"Send lawyers, guns and money
Dad, get me out of this!"

[qwrrty.livejournal.com]

Oh, that's even better than "I'll Sleep When I'm Dead"!

[maebeth.livejournal.com]

Iris Dement's "Let the mystery be"