Have we ever had a music for your funeral thread? We must have surely.
https://twitter.com/fesshole/status/1512360859221340164?s=20&t=InHdQ7ytfUsPOX7_Lhk0Iw
You’d better put it in writing Colin H
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It can be arranged
I’m sure we have. I have a pact with someone at the folk club; whichever one of us survives the other has to sing ‘Who Knows Where the Time Goes?’ at the other’s funeral.
Have you left instructions for what should be done if Ric Sanders turns up and tries to join in?
My Cropredy mates wouldn’t even need an instruction, just reflex.
There’s that many songs that I would like played at mine, that it would almost become a set list.
Joe Hill
We’re all Leaving – Karine Polwart
The Joy of Living – Ewan MacColl
Also, I don’t want people to process in and out; I want them to mazurka.
and The Slow Train, and the Last Train from Bacup, if there’s time.
Solsbury Hill “Grab your things I’ve come to take you home”
In the same way that religious funerals have given way to more humanist services in the last couple of decades I can see them becoming less common in general. Certainly if you see any daytime commercial television you will have noticed how adverts for funeral plans now jostle for space with those for prepaid direct cremation, an idea which seemed novel to me just a few years ago when I read that Bowie didn’t have a funeral.
The Light and I have a mutual agreement that neither of us want a funeral. I’ve always hated being the centre of attention and don’t see why being dead should change that. To be clear I have nothing against funerals, religious or otherwise, for those who choose them. My father’s funeral was a couple of months ago; he was a church going Christian so of course we gave the religious ceremony he would have wanted.
None of that answers the question in the OP, does it? Sorry about that.
It’s never occurred to me not to have a funeral. I think I’d rather just be cremated and have my kids scatter my ashes in the grounds of Gloucester Cathedral, assuming the Dean & Chapter are alright with it. Failing that, Robinswood Hill would be fine too. No ceremony sounds nice.
And if I must have a funeral, bollocks to all this celebration business: I want hired mourners, sackcloth, ashes and WAILING.
Having officially left the church I won’t qualify for a church funeral, but other than that I think I’ll leave the details to the family members I leave behind.
A funeral, in my opinion and experience, has nothing to do with the corpse in the box; it’s a way for family and friends to get some relief from their grief. Which, of course, will go on for much longer and perhaps never completely leave, but there’s something about having a farewell ritual that psychologically and almost physically relieves you from that first, heavy grief that weighs you down so much that it becomes difficult to breathe at times. Something is lifted from your shoulders when the familiar rituals make you face the absolute reality of this loss, which feels so unreal up to that point, most of the time. Everyday life can begin again.
So I feel it’s up to the ones left behind to decide what they need to feel better – perhaps, if I live long enough, only nephews and nieces will be left and they won’t grieve so much over an old, generous but introverted, aunt and have no need for a big spectacle – if so, I’m perfectly fine with it. By then I don’t think I’ll care.
Having officially left the church….? Things are different in England where you can get married, christened and funeraled in a church even if you don’t know what one is. I can’t be the only one who’s been to church weddings chuckling under my breath at the notion that any ‘of these persons here present’ is or ever has been a Christian. Including possibly the vicar.
We’re automatically assigned to the Swedish (Lutheran) Church when we’re born, some stay in because they’re too lazy to leave, some stay so they can get married in a proper church, a very small number stay in because they’re actually religious… But a lot of people do the paperwork (or is there an app for it these days?) to officially withdraw from the church – Sweden is the most secular country on earth, apparently.
No small reason is that staying in means having to pay a rather substantial “church tax” annually – when that was introduced, lots of people jumped ship! We do still need to pay a small annual “funeral tax”, but that’s small change compared to the church ransom fee…
I had to leave two churches, none of which I had entered voluntarily, as the Catholic church claimed me because I happened to be baptised there (only time I’ve ever been inside a Catholic church), so they could get some church tax from me as well – I immediately called and got myself out of their registers (which I hadn’t been aware of being in). They tried to claim me for their tax the next year anyway…but the tax department refunded me immediately once I called them about it.
I too can of course enter into any church I want to visit, for weddings and concerts, should I ever want to; I just can’t get married myself in one (well, if I marry someone still paying a church tax, I guess they’ll allow me to!)
Not planning to marry anyone, ever, I can live with that exclusion!
I can understand a non-believer wanting to get married in a beautiful church just because of the cool architecture and the ceremonial aspect.
Makes no sense otherwise.
Mind you, nor does it make much sense to do the deed in some soulless registry office unless you just want to get it done with minimum fuss.
I’ve got this in my will, to be played at the end of my funeral.
Maybe I should tell someone, but this is my choice
and/or this:
Possibly a bit more “grown up” than Frigging In The Rigging
This is a very timely reminder. Thank you.
I have just had an exchange with one of my sons and he has agreed to ensure that a John Otway song is played at my funeral – no matter how many objections are raised. I just need to let him know which one – almost certainly it will be House of The Rising Sun (Live At Abbey Road) as I was part of the “chorus”.
No need to thank me for not posting the song…
Beware Of The Flowers Cos I’m Sure They’re Going To Get You Yeah
Sage advice to the congregation
“Burn Baby Burn…feel the heat of the naked flame” makes Bunsen Burner a questionable choice for a cremation
“Can you hear my body talkin’?”
Eewww
“Here’s my body walkin'”
AAAAGGGGHHHH!
But what if the multiple objections are raised by his mother?
Then he should tell her that it’s none of her business.
I am hoping to be so old that my chosen songs provoke a spirited revival of Morris dancing. Alternatively, Putin could make it next week, and there won’t be anyone to hear my carefully curated choices.
I was left to ‘organise the music’ at my stepdad’s cremation service. He wasn’t at all religious, but Jerusalem was his favourite tune, so we all sang that.
I chose ‘Days’ (the version by the Kinks) for the leaving the crematorium bit.
Trouble is, I can’t play The Village Green Preservation Society (one of my fave albums) now. So I hope Mrs F chooses something she doesn’t like when I cark it. Stereolab, probably.
Days isn’t on TVGPS.
I should have added “on CD”.
Early pressings in New Zealand and continental Europe did include it. These are the facts that matter in 2022.
I have always (well, as long as I can remember), wanted Ringo singing “goodnight” from the white album.
Should get round to telling my family I suppose.
That’s one of my picks as well, Jack. Another on the list is Wayfaring Stranger as sung by Charlie Hayden.
I’m not remotely religious so will probably ask for a simple cremation service, hopefully up where I was born and the place I still think of as ‘home’.
That will mean a considerable hike for our friends but I’ll be dead and that will their look out.
I’ll plump for the Ying Tong Song. But I’ve noticed that comedy records played in full at sombre occasions amongst a mixed company stall badly, with a few titters at the start but a long period of unamused quiet as it plays through. So perhaps just the first few seconds of that.
But , like Hedgepig, I want tears, dammit! As I head for the final journey I’d like Nat King Cole’s version of Hoagy Carmichael’s ‘Stardust’. Which is quite apt seeing as that’s what we all return to. And it’s deeply sentimental, was a favourite of my Dad, and makes my bottom lip wobble when I hear it.
I’m intrigued by the “considerable hike” – where were you born?
How would you react if Beez said that he’s not from Northumberland at all, but from a small planet somewhere in the vicinity of Betelgeuse?
Um, yes – that IS a considerable hike…and where do you park?
And can you get a drink and a pastie afterwards?
I’m contractually obliged by Northumberland County Council to draw attention to the place here on a monthly basis.
I mean it’s not as if Channel 5 doesn’t send a camera crew up to Bamburgh Fucking Castle to remark on how unknown the place is week in fucking week out. I’m amazed it’s not got it’s own airport yet.
I do know where my towels are, aswell.
Countryfile has been up to Northumberland a few times.
Like, er, every other week.
A Spanish friend of mine died a while ago without any funeral or memorial service whatsoever. Like H’pig above, the notion had never occured to me before. I thought it was kinda a class act. I might insist on same. But for my In Memorium Facebook Group* showreel, where once I would have gone for Joy Division’s Atmosphere or Van’s Into The Mystic now my choice is Eric Serra’s It’s Only Mystery. Also to be my ‘Castaway’s Favourite’ on Desert island Discs.
*Lodestone and Enrico the pool boy.
Would you like to be laid out in a grubby white overcoat in the Paris metro, maybe with a peroxide blonde spike haircut?
You have just described my present circumstances with uncanny accuracy.
Just back from some old friends mother’s funeral, we entered to Mares eat Oats and Does eat Oats.
The walk out at the end was to Laurel and Hardy’s Trail of the Lonesome Pine.
In the very unlikely event anybody is at my funeral they’ll be hearing this.
Walk in:
Walk out:
2 crackers.
I Know It’s Over and Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now for me…
KlF Last train to Transcentral, for me.
Just want the congregation, crowd, onlookers to sing “Mu mu!”
Over and out,
My uncle chose Strange Boat by The Waterboys which was very effective and appropriate.
@Max-the-Dog we had Strange Boat for our wedding which was also very effective and appropriate.
Good choice, Steve
Have often thought I’d like this, providing it’s played in its entirety. Suitably funereal, and I rather like the idea of them all having to sit through a three and a half minute guitar solo before the vocals kick in, mostly having no idea where the song is going.
Mine change every so often but my wife has the list. At this moment it is Lucinda Williams Side of the road and Leonard Cohens Hey that’s no way to say goodbye.
“Willin'” by Little Feat. Maybe also “Slow marching band” by TMT.
My mum is currently in hospital and won’t be coming out – it’s any day now. She doesn’t want a funeral – only an unattended cremation, then her ashes scattered in the sea where she grew up and a celebration after.
I’m so sorry, @Twang. I do hope she isn’t suffering and that you are allowed unlimited visiting.
Thanks @tiggerlion. Sadly she passed away in the early hours of Sunday morning but was heavily sedated and not in any pain.
Oh Twang, I’m so sorry for your loss. May her memory be a blessing.
Sorry to hear of your loss.
At least you know how exactly to send her off. There’ll be lots to sort out for now. The reality will likely kick in in a few weeks time. I hope you have plenty of happy memories to cherish. Best wishes to you and your family.
Sorry to hear of your loss, Twang. Hope you’re bearing up OK.
Thinking of you and yours, Twang old boy.
My condolences, Twang – and my best wishes to you and your family.
Sad for you.
Sending a virtual hand on the shoulder.
Thanks all, appreciated. She had me when she was 21 so that I always had the young trendy mum and she was very beautiful into her 50s. I always thought she was incredibly cool and saw the Walker Bros/Scott numerous times including the tour with the Jimi Hendrix Experience. She was also wilful to a fault and for most of her life did exactly as she chose, regardless of the consequences, often in the most irresponsible manner. She frequently drove me up the fucking wall but she was still my mum and if there’s one song to play at her celebration it’ll be “My way”, much as it’s a terrible song.
She told me repeatedly for years that she “should have fallen off the twig by now”, but when she was given 48 hours to live she held on for 10 more days. Awkward to the last.
I once asked my dad, long after they were divorced, what it had been like to live with her. He thought for a while then said “well, it was never boring”.
She sounds fantastic!
What a wonderful description of her, Twang.
Both very moving´ and very funny.
Your dad sounds rather wonderful too: a nice sense of humour.
Sending you big Swedish hugs in these difficult days.
So sorry for your loss. All the best to you.
Thanks chaps.
I keep telling them Maggot Brain by Parliament but I bet they go with Somewhere Over The Rainbow by Eva Cassidy.
Worth dying to miss that.
Funnily enough, I was just thinking about Somewhere Over The Rainbow by Eva Cassidy and remembering where I first heard her version. I like it because it doesn’t seem to me to be as schmaltzy as the Judy Garland version. Each to his own, eh?
To be fair to my family, I don’t think any of them have heard of Parliament in a music-sense and once they actually hear Maggot Brain may well be justified in preferring Eva’s dulcet tones.
Maggot Brain is Funkadelic.
Relax ladies, I’m married etc
Of course.
Cuh
Unchanged. Used to send off my ma, and good enough for me.
I’ve given this a lot of thought and the current playlist is the Big Music by the Waterboys followed by Roddy Frame’s version of the Beatles In My Life with Somebody Up There Likes You by Simple Minds as the exit music. It was the tune that the sound desk used to play when the gig was definitely over in Dublin in the 80s. No idea why but when you heard it, there were definitely no more encores coming.
I’ve been to friends funerals where one had Johnny Cash’s version of Hurt – painful as he had been ill for some time, and another had It’s Raining Again by Supertramp, an optimistic song but the line “I’m losing a friend”, broke my heart. I thought he might have gone with this. He was a big Jake Thackray fan…
My sister knows it’s this: (….whithout the high-voiced fat bloke’s announcement!)
A full gravelly version of Tom Waits crooning ‘Take It With Me’ for me, please. As he says: Ain’t no good thing ever dies’. Not true, of course, sadly.
This…
But I’ll understand if they don’t want to play the full thirteen minutes. Otherwise, put me in a biodegradable bag and bury me in the back garden (can be done as we don’t really love that close to anyone else and I’m nowhere near a water source).
This thread is a load of Afterworders, including me, saying, “Ha! Finally you buggers have to listen to my music”
Some 30 years ago I decided on East St. Loius Toodle-oo, the Steely Dan version. Have a note to that effect tucked away with my will. No doubt nobody will bother checking up on my wishes but the hope is that, if the timing is right, then the doors to the fiery furnace should close just as the gong is struck at the end of the piece.
Some days I chuckle about the thought of changing it to VdGG’s A Plague of Lighthouse Keepers but suspect I probably won’t.
I am genuinely thinking of this as the box goes through the curtain…..
Time for farewell.
A mate of mine wants Final Taxi by Wreckless Eric which sounds fab to me.
This is mine for when I go through the curtain. Mrs thep has been fully briefed.
If I’m lucky enough to kark it here in Siam – as I am determined to do – there’s an instrumental “song” played at every funeral, very haunting and beautiful, on traditional instruments, but I can’t find it on YouTube. I have been to a funeral where it was played by real musicians – mostly you hear it crackling out of a beat-up speaker cab from an mp3 chip. It gets played a lot during the peak hot season. The white and gilt coffin is on display on a cloth-draped dais in the front room, covered in flowers and gilt-framed photographs of the deceased. Candles and incense, kids and dogs running about. An awning is erected over the street outside the house – blocking the road – plastic chairs are set out, and everybody rocks up with an envelope of cash to pay for the catering. Funerals generally last three days, with speeches, and monks chanting, terminated by a procession to the temple to crisp the stiff. Funerals are also an occasion for a bit of gambling on the side – cards and dice – the dice being expertly manipulated by some toothless old girl on a cloth on the ground. It’s as good a way to say goodbye as any.
Well I hope there’s a decent spread. Cheese baps, vol-au-vents, Vienetta and the like.
Twiglets, mini sausage rolls, generic Ritz crackers with cream cheese and a bit of pineapple, – we’re very sophisticated out here.
Livin’ La Vida Loca!
My 3 songs are written on a post-it stuck to the will. They are – if you would like to create that authentic Lando’s dead ambience:
Coming in – Jackie Leven, Working Alone/A Blessing
Reflective bit in the middle – Michael Marra, The Fold
Going out – Kate Bush, Sunset (this speeds up at the end, giving a bit of a New Orleans vibe)