Morbid: What do you want to have played on your funeral?

In My Humble Opinion
1

OK, so I was listening to REM yesterday. No big deal, I do this almost every day. The best CD they ever made is, in my opinion, New Adventures in HiFi. For some reason, the fifth and sixth song on the album do strange stuff to each other. They are very different, yet the compliment each other like they were written in one go. And then it struck me: these are the songs that I want to have played on my funeral, in sequence. First, E-bow the Letter because of the following lyrics:

I don’t want to disappoint you
I’m not here to anoint you
I would lick your feet
But is that the sickest move?
I wear my own crown and sadness and sorrow
And who’d have thought tomorrow could be so strange?
My loss, and here we go again

And then: Leave

*Shifting the dream
nothing could bring me further from my old friend time.
shifting the dream
it’s charging the scene
I know where I marked the signs.

I suffer the dreams of a world gone mad
I like it like that and I know it
I know it well, ugly and sweet,
that temper madness with an even extreme.*

These two songs describe perfectly how I feel now and would represent me best when I die tomorrow.
What about you? Do you know what you want to be your farewell speech?

2

I have never given it thought, so I don’t know.

However, my dad wanted Borodin’s “On The Steppes Of Central Asia” (classical piece) played at his funeral. He died overseas, so we really couldn’t have a proper funeral for him. I bought the score, & had it tattooed around my upper arm, as a tribute.

3

Tschaikovsky’s Marche Slave.

Then “Flight of the Bumblebee” just to screw with everyone’s mind.

Keep in mind I alternate between wanting to be cremated and have an ounce of my ashes mixed with an ounce of really good dope and then smoked @ the wake; or put intact with blades in the coffin so I can fight the werewolves when I get to Valhalla.

Whichever it is, I think it’s going to be interesting!

4

Dead Skunk (In The Middle Of The Road) by Loudon Wainwright III.

5

I’m hoping not to have a funeral. Just have the stiff cremated as soon as possible and ashes distributed in some suitable body of water, possibly the toilet.

If someone wants to do something in my memory, I would prefer for them to sit down at the piano, or grab the guitar or saxophone or flute or sousaphone or whatever, and actually MAKE some damn homemade music.

6

The Police, “Shadows in the Rain”

Woke up in my clothes again this morning
Don’t know exactly where I am

:smiley:

7

A good friend of mine had Star Wars playing at his funeral. Very appropriate if you knew him. Made me smile :slight_smile:

I don’t know what I’d choose, if anything. Something celtic, maybe.

Or the theme to E.T.

Or Weird Al Yankovic polka medleys.

8

I don’t want a funeral either, but I wouldn’t mind “Birdhouse In Your Soul” by TMBG or some Replacements being played at the bar while my family and friends raise a glass.

9

Fade to Black by Metallica
Life it seems, will fade away
Drifting further every day
Getting lost within myself
Nothing matters no one else
I have lost the will to live
Simply nothing more to give
There is nothing more for me
Need the end to set me free

Things are not what they used to be
Missing one inside of me
Deathly lost, this can’t be real
Cannot stand this hell I feel
Emptiness is filing me
To the point of agony
Growing darkness taking dawn
I was me, but now He’s gone

No one but me can save myself, but it to late
Now I can’t think, think why I should even try

Yesterday seems as though it never existed
Death Greets me warm, now I will just say good-bye
Or maybe

The Way I Wanna Go by Sentenced
I know of a heaven… and damn sure… I know of a Hell…
if you could take a look into this fighter’s mind… the things you’d see.

What would you think? How would you feel?
If you could really know me…mmm…

Can you see this Hell I feel inside?
A tragedy in a human mind.
Aaaaaaargh! That’s what I am!!!

So turn away, turn away and go.
Turn away while you still can.
Turn away. The way I’m gonna go
is not the way you want to go!

This reign that I have built myself,
over the years, will crumble down on me.

Life’s double edged sword
gives both pleasure and pain.
And it’s MY cross to be carried!!!

Can you see this chaos-ridden mind?
This tragedy, this tragedy of a human mind.
Aaaaaaargh! That’s how I am!!!

"It might seem to you that we are same.
But that’s just a part of the illusion of life.

There’s no perfection in this world,
and in the end we’re but two strangers
sailing our personal seas of sorrow…"

I’ve been to heaven! (and let me tell you)
I have been “down there”

So turn away, turn away and go.
Turn away while you still can.
Turn away. The way I’m gonna go
is not the way you want to go!

Turn away, Turn away…
This is the way I wanna go

(or just about anything else by Sentenced)

NP: Willie Nelson - Red Headed Stranger

10

Well, I hope to be cremated and let everyone have a giant party. More to my liking.

If there needed to be a moment of silence at the beginning, I’d have the hymn, Great Is Thy Faithfulness played, and then…let the party begin!

The hymn is just the one that’s always been a favorite of mine.

Maybe then Listz’s Hungarian Rhapsodies or Beethoven’s Ninth (or is it the Fifth? Which one has the chorus for “Ode To Joy” in it? That one) for a little flair. Love 'em both.

11

BunnyGirl: Ode to Joy is the Ninth. :slight_smile:

My friend had “Amazing Grace” on the bagpipes played at his. I’m tempted to do the same.

12

I have to think about which song. But I hope there would be someone who would be moved to read that poem from Four Weddings and a Funeral. That was the best.

~t

13

Depending on my mood, either Monty Python’s Always Look on the Bright Side of Life (complete with the often-edited-out “Life’s a piece of s–t” verse), or “Weird Al” Yankovic’s Dare to Be Stupid.

14

I’m going to be cremated, too (right after Lupe Velez and I finish flushing Ike). But I want heavily-veiled mourners to carry my ashes to the local duck pond while weeping copiously and playing Chopin’s Sonata No. 2, that funeral march they play whenever bigwigs die in Russia.

On the way back home, they can all truck to the tune of “I’ll Be Glad When You’re Dead, You Rascal, You.”

15

I hate funerals. Been to altogether too many of them lately.
But if I had to have one, I think I’d like either Danse Macabre or Whiter Shade Of Pale, or maybe just hire a piper.

16

I’d like to have everyone listen to Dark Side of the Moon while watching The Wizard of Oz on mute.

If only one song, then I’d pick the last song on the album Eclipse:

All that you touch
All that you see
All that you taste
All you feel
All that you love
All that you hate
All you distrust
All you save
All that you give
All that you deal
All that you buy
beg, borrow or steal
All you create
All you destroy
All that you do
All that you say
All that you eat
everyone you meet
All that you slight
everyone you fight
All that is now
All that is gone
All that’s to come
and everything under the sun is in tune
but the sun is eclipsed by the moon

17

First, if I can get away with it, I want my naked corpse dropped in a big hole and a tree planted on top of it. No ceremony, just feed the tree. If not, cremate me and feed the tree.

If people wanna have a wake, that’s cool, and I have a provision to cover a pretty decent memorial party. The attendees get to pick the music, except the first one: ‘You Rascal You’, written by Sam Theard, as recorded by Louis Armstrong. Yes, I know, he’s not the first to record it, but that’s my favorite version, and it’s my wake, anyway. Gotta start the party on the right note: None too reverent.

18

No question in my mind.

A single bagpiper playing “Amazing Grace.” Even at a non-funereal occasion, that tune brings a lump to my throat.

Of course, the piper wouldn’t be allowed to wear anything under the kilt.

19

chopin’s funeral march. it puts the fun in “funeral”.

20

Most of the time (including now) I plan to have Prop Me Up Beside The Jukebox If I Die played. All I worry about is whether my family will go along with that.