I really don’t have a list, I can only come up with a few decent ones right now.
Wild horses - rolling stones
Look on down from the bridge - Mazzy star
Apparently Always look on the bright side of life is a popular funeral song. Lovely Day - Bill Withers would probably be a good song too.
I wonder if anyone picks Behind the Scenes by MC Ren. I’d doubt it.
Funeral or the wake? I’m Catholic and they are pretty strict about what can be played in church at the funeral.
The wake at the funeral home should be wide open, though.
I’m not Catholic, I’m a member of the Episcopal church and it’s about the same. I’d have to have two lists, one for in church, the hymns and pre service music and another list for when people gather to visit and eat.
Gotta think about this, I’ll come back later.
The wake, either/or.
Joan Baez version of Dylan’s Forever Young
Gordon Lightfoot Mr. Rock of Ages
Neil Young Long May you Run
St. Louis Jesuits Before The Sun Burned Bright
Mary Chapin Carpenter Between Here and Gone
Have had this list for a while now. Not in any particular order as of now. Don’t expect to need it any time soon so there could be additions or changes. Might add In My Life as it’s my favorite Beatle song.
Charles Alkan’s Funeral March for a Parrot.
That’s all that’s needed!
One I’m insisting on and have already arranged for at my (Lutheran) funeral: Rainbow Connection. Sung by everyone there I hope and if someone can lead it as Kermit the Frog even better.
Other than that one no popular song (non-sacred) really grabs me enough to have it as part of the service. But if the funeral home pipes some metal through their soundsystem mixed with some classic rock, I won’t object.
If it’s in church you have to have something with some organ music so…
A Whiter Shade of Pale
There’s a somber feel to it yet a timeless quality.
And in case the one who got away shows up…
Nights in White Satin](The Moody Blues - Nights In White Satin - YouTube)
Also something that would resonate well in a church and has a timeless quality to it.
the only song that I need at my funeral is social distortions "when the angels sings " although I might throw in bad religions "better off dead " too just for the shock value …
Have to finish the music with a Monty Python video of "Dead Parrot.
For the wake? I don’t care. Whatever my husband and daughter want to hear. Although I have been thinking of doing a one-day funeral wake, where I’m just hanging around the church, people come in, pay their respects to my husband and daughter, and then stay for the funeral or leave. We just moved up her to be close to our daughter and maybe know five people in town, if that, so I’m not expecting a crowd. My husband knows a lot of people in Chicago, so you never know, though. It will make it difficult to arrange the funeral luncheon at a restaurant. I wonder if hot dogs at Portillo’s would be considered lower class? I’m sure people would drive the 90 minutes from the suburbs for a funeral and a good hot dog.
So now, as I think of that, I’m in church for both, so nothing secular. Probably a CD of some nice Latin music playing quietly during the wake portion of the morning’s entertainment.
So, Ave Maria ((Schubert), Be Thou My Vision, Amazing Grace, I Know My Redeemer Lives, and maybe Panis Angelicus or Holy God We Praise Thy Name.
There are a couple more I like, so I may be back. I need a processional, recessional, Communion song, one near the Creed, and that’s about it, so I may not even need five.
My sister really wanted Smile, Though Your Heart is Breaking. She didn’t get it at the funeral, but she got it at the wake.
Two by John Denver
Wings That Fly Us Home
Rhymes and Reasons
Is there a song about wishing that they don’t even find my body? Except that would be a grave inconvenience for those sorting out my estate, I guess the price I have to pay for a death certificate it to make my body available for all the attendant indignities.
I have told everyone that I want my funeral to open with Spirit In The Sky full blast. That should wake everyone up. I also want Alice Cooper, of course, so I think it should be I Love the Dead and maybe Cold Ethel. My friends will expect it. Gotta have Stairway to Heaven. That will probably be last, as everyone is heading out. Let’s see, one more…oh heck, better have Amazing Grace. No solo. Everyone sings!. Oh, one more Alice! School’s Out!
Magnetic Fields’ “Meaningless”: - YouTube. I have thought about funeral playlists before; this song is always on them.
A great breakup song, but the lyrics are vague enough it works almost as well from beyond-the-grave. Emotional tone: bittersweet mixture of explicit nihilism and implicit “still, that was pretty awesome.”
Plus the bridge is so damn funny:
“And if some dim bulb should say / we were in love in some way,
Kick all his teeth in for me -
And if you feel like keeping on kicking, feel free”
At church funeral
Sweet By and By
Precious Memories
Amazing Grace
What a Friend We have in Jesus
Old Rugged Cross
Our family has never held wakes.
That’s about it for music.
I could live (sorry – bad pun intended) with a couple of those during my funeral; the classics are often the best. One though that I have warned my wife and cousins will cause me to claw my way out of my casket and start the zombie apocalypse ---- On Eagles Wings. I can’t explain just why but that song, especially at funerals, is just nails-on-a-chalkboard to me.
Play Mountain Jam 10 times in a row. Nobody gets nothin’ if they leave early.
Atheist, don’t and never wanted a funeral/wake.
No money/plans/anyone for one.
Never thought about music.
AC-DC highway to hell to be played when they carry the coffin out.
Other than that, i don’t care. I plan to be dead at my funeral, not in the audience.