Well, no…the idea is to remember the good stuff, especially if the dying part was really awful. I want people to be happy that I was alive, and that I was a part (hopefully a funny part sometimes) of their lives.
I imagine that anybody who was glad that I was dead probably wouldn’t bother to show up at my funeral at all.
(After all, showing up just to gloat would be in really poor taste…)
Firth of Fifth by Genesis, followed by
Why don’t we do it in the road?, the perfect song for any occasion.
Morricone’s Gabriel’s Oboe, as done by Yo Yo Ma.
Beth Nielson Chapman’s Sand and Water:
All alone I came into this world,
All alone I will someday die,
Solid stone is but sand and water, baby,
Sand and water, and a million years gone by.
And I’ll Fly Away:
Some bright morning when this life is over, I’ll fly away.
To a home on God’s celestial shore, I’ll fly away.
I’ll fly away, oh Glory, I’ll fly away (in the morning)
When I die, Hallelujah, bye and bye, I’ll fly away.
Precisely. Since everyone at my funeral is ideally feeling sad, I don’t want them to be informed that they ought to be feeling happy.
A funeral usually takes place within a week or so of the death, when the wound is still fresh. It’s a time to support one another in grief and take comfort in observing the proper rituals to pay respect. Remembering the good parts of the life of the deceased will occupy the future months and years as the grief is replaced by reminiscence.
By all means, share happy stories of the deceased. We did that at my dad’s funeral. But we didn’t pretend that we were there to have a merry party and swap jokes; in brief we didn’t pretend that it was a happy occasion. That would have been hurtful to, well, us, the family of the deceased, in the front row, crying our eyes out. I hate being ordered to cheer up.
My Step-father had - *In My Life - * The Beatles and The Farmers Song - Murray McLauchlin
One of my friends had Courage - The Tragically Hip and another friend had *Home Sweet Home - * Motley Crue.
All of these services were touching, sad and happy at the same time. We all smiled over memories of the person, while tears streamed down.
That reminds me of another good one for me: Natalie Merchant’s version of “When They Ring The Golden Bells”
We shall know no sin or sorrow
In that heaven of tomorrow
When our hearts shall sail beyond the silvery sea
We shall only know the blessing
Of our Father’s sweet caressing
When they ring the golden bells for you and me
When our days have known their number
When in death we sweetly slumber
When the King commands the spirit to be free
Nevermore with anguish laden
We shall reach that lovely Eden
When they ring the golden bells for you and me
My Way - but only by Sid Vicious
My best friend has always said she wants “Amazing Grace” at her funeral… played on the bagpipes. She’s felt this way ever since 7th grade best as I can tell.
She’s not a Christian… but her name is Grace. 
For me, I dunno. It would probably be something from the band “Live,” which I tend to associate with The Meaning of Life ™
“Overcome” is a haunting ballad originally written about the tragedy of 9-11, but it contains a beautiful description of grief:
These women in the street
Pulling out their hair
My master’s in the yard
Giving light to the unaware
This plastic little place
Is just a step amongst the stairs
And I am overcome
I am overcome, baby
Holy water in my lungs
I am overcome
So drive me out
Out to that open field
Turn the ignition off
And spin around
Your help is here
But I’m parked in the open space
Locking the gates of love
But really the song that I most identify with myself is a little more upbeat, maybe not appropriate for a funeral, but really captures the way I think:
We spend all of our lives
Going out of our minds
Looking back to our birth
Forward to our demise
Even scientists say
Everything is just light
Not created, destroyed
But eternally bright
Masters in every time
Lord, in every place
Those who stood up for love
In spite of the hate…
(“They Stood Up for Love”, Live)
It’s cheesy, but if anybody gets any impression out of the life I have lived, I want it to be that I was one of the determined few who stood up for love.
Or “Flow”:
We’ve gotta find a way to flow
In a host of things that grow
Where babies become old
And love is bought and sold
But the mouth of god is wide
So let’s just crawl inside
And let the whole damn thing go…
Flow…
But yeah, it would pretty much have to be “Live.”
If we’re sharing lyrics:
“The Heart Asks Pleasure First” is a haunting classical piano piece, the theme from The Piano.
“Being Boring”:
…Now I sit with different faces
In rented rooms and far-off places
All the people I was kissing
Some are here and some are missing
In the nineteen-nineties
I never dreamt that I would get to be
The creature that I always meant to be
But I thought in spite of dreams
You’d be sitting somewhere here with me
…525,600 minutes
525,600 journeys to plan
525,600 minutes
How do you measure the life of a woman or a man?
In truths that he learned, in times that she cried
In bridges he burned or the way that she died
It’s time now to sing out, though the story never ends
We’ll celebrate, remember a year in the life of a friend
How about love?
Measure in love - measure your life in love.
Smoke Gets In Your Eyes.
Ring Of Fire.
… as sung by Alvin and The Chipmunks.
Prop Me Up Beside the Jukebox (If I Die) by Joe Diffie