# Music for your funeral???

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/music-for-your-funeral/364419>\
**Category:** Cafe Society\
**Created:** [July 14, 2006, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/music-for-your-funeral/364419 "2006-07-14T02:43:58Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 4

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**Author:** ![zoog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/7ea924/32.png) [@zoog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zoog)\
**Post date:** [July 15, 2006, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/music-for-your-funeral/364419/61 "2006-07-15T02:43:48Z")

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> [@Missy2U](#):
>
> They can play whatever they want - they’re remembering ME so I figure they can pick, I’m not doing much of anything but lying there.

This has always been pretty much my take on the whole “at my funeral” thing. Like I’m gonna give a shit - I’m DEAD!

But just to be on the safe side, play some fun, upbeat stuff just to make sure. If I get up and start dancing around to it, maybe they’ll want to postpone the whole burial thing…

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**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\
**Post date:** [July 15, 2006, 6:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/music-for-your-funeral/364419/62 "2006-07-15T06:00:39Z")

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It’s Raining Men  
Ob-La-Di-Ob-La-Da  
We’re Off to See the Wizard . . .  
When Banana Skins are Falling, I’ll Come Sliding Home to You  
The Good Ship Lollipop  
Making Whoopie  
I’ve Got Tears in My Ears from Lyin’ on My Back on My Bed, Cryin’ Over You  
Mairzy Doats  
It’s My Party and I’ll Cry if I Want to  
I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas  
The Teddy Bears’ Picnic  
It’s Raining Men (encore)

Of course, everything is a sing-along.

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**Author:** ![ambushed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3bc359/32.png) [@ambushed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ambushed)\
**Post date:** [July 15, 2006, 10:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/music-for-your-funeral/364419/63 "2006-07-15T10:19:17Z")

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There’s only **one** possibility for me. From Keith Jarrett’s Nordic yet lush and _astonishingly_, hauntingly gorgeous [Arbour Zena](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0000261NK), his piece: _ **Solara March** (Dedicated To Pablo Casals And The Sun)_. It is the absolute best album I’ve ever heard, bar none. In fact, it’s so special to me I only allow myself to listen to it once every five years. How I cry and cry as its passions enrapture me! If that makes me a sentimentalist, so be it.

I would have an announcement asking the (certainly tiny) audience to close their eyes and for as much silence as they could muster and then play _Solara March_. The first half of the piece resounds with somber, even sepulchral acoustic bass and strings and achingly icy soprano sax. Then comes the surprise: the piece turns at half-point into a toe-tapping, very up-beat literal march, suffused with joy and wiping out the sobriety of the first half!

In other words, it sends just the message I want to send as my farewell gift to existence.

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