So, you’re healthy, feeling and looking good, but your kid says, “Mom, when you die, what music would you like played at your memorial service?” Where did this come from? Turns out she has attended several services lately and the music has suffered.
So I’m pondering this. Do I start with what I remember from listening to my parents’ choices? Sinatra, Bennett, West Coast Jazz? How about my own earliest choices: Little Richard, Bo Diddley, Elvis, The Platters? Moving into the Sixties: Creedence Clearwater Revival, Rolling Stones, the Beatles, Jefferson Airplane? Seventies? Led Zep, Elton John, The Who? And so on.
Can you list about thirty – forty specific songs that depict your life span? Things that can be played while your ashes are spread in San Francisco Bay? (Leave from Jack London Square in Oakland, out onto the Bay, a stop for disposing of the ashes, and the return trip. Takes up to two hours or more.)
Stuff that I like now includes Good Charlotte, Norah Jones, anything by Gwen Stefani, Dave Matthews Band, Outkast. Stuff that moves me spiritually: Ave Maria, Danny Boy.
gooti, thanks for more food for thought. I was a Catholic school kid and classical piano student for twelve years so I was exposed to more varied music than my post indicated. In eighth grade we listened to opera every Monday morning between 9 and 11 (a local NPR-like station).
I decided to focus on popular music of the times rather than music of the ages. My bad? Currently I enjoy gospel music at Glide Memorial in San Francisco on Sunday mornings when I’m fortunate to be in the city. Hell, I love Gregorian chants! My Mom’s idol was Mahalia Jackson.
The Third Man Theme, Ubla Dee (Life Goes On), L’chaim (from Fiddler on the Roof) You know the one that goes, "To life, To life, L’chaim…), Maybe Sinatra doing That’s Life and then close it with Be kind to your web-footed friends…(sung to the tune of Stars and Stripes for ever).
Be kind to your web-footed friends.
For a duck may be somebody’s mother
Be kind to your friends in the swamp,
Cause it’s very, very damp (rhymes with swamp).
You may think that this is the end,
Well, it is.
Since I won’t be there, I don’t really care what music is played. I do, however, plan to leave a suitable amount of cash to hire a live band and buy a bunch of booze so that everyone can have a nice party.
Personally, I like “Wind Beneath My Wings” not because it would speak of me, but of my own mother who was the support that let everyone around her be their best. Then the S&G “Scarborough Fair” just because I like it. Then whatever the survivors would like, since this whole thing is taking place where they can dance, drink, tell jokes and have a good ol’ time, celebrating life, past, present and future.
It’s a long way down the road for me (God willing), but I’ve already made my memorial service song choices clear with my family and friends.
Aerosmith, Dream On
and
Norman Greenbaum, Spirit in the Sky
Albinoni - Adagio in G Minor. A piece that lots of people recognize, but it’s one of the most beautiful works ever. Appropriate for a funeral as well for its slow and solemness
James Barnes: Symphony No. 3, Op. 89: Mvmt 3. For Natalie. This is a movement from a great piece of work by Barnes, who wrote band music. The piece is about his daughter who died only days after being brought into the world. Not a lot of people would have heard this music before, and I suppose that is a good thing. I like to be unpredictable, even when I’m dead. If you want to find a recording of this, you’re going to have to check out with the Southern Music Company because it’s on no labels or other CD’s that I know of. Music lovers should definatly check this out.
I used to want a movement from Mozart’s Requiem Mass played at my funeral (probably the Lacrimosa), but I thought that it may be a bit over the top. Still, it’s a very mournful and appropriate piece, if not very moving as well.
John Adams: Phrygian Gates, for piano. I’m not all to sure on this one, because this is a minimalist piece and it might get on a few peoples nerves. But it certainly is beautiful, and to me sounds like some sort of ascension.
My musical choices change from day to day, but R.E.M.'s “It’s the End of the World as We Know It (and I Feel Fine)” with the counterpoint in the chorus of “It’s time I had some time alone” has always been up there in my choices. If I didn’t want to be buried under the jalapeno patch in someone’s garden, I’d consider that line on a tombstone or urn.
“Wow, this chili’s got a real kick to it!”
“Well, yeah – that’s Velma for you.”
