I’ve threatened to come back and haunt them if I hear On Eagles Wings.
Swing Low, Sweet Chariot
Amazing Grace
I mean this not as threadshitting, but just to offer another perspective:
I’m all for funerals, although we generally call them “a celebration of life”, but as an atheist I’ve always believed these events are for the living. Let the folks who know and care about me select the music they would like to hear. This is their gig-- I’m gone.
They are for the living, but for them to be comforting to the living, they also have to be about the dead. Its stressful to the living to not know what your wishes would have been - at a stressful time. So, if you can leave some instructions - simple ones - “cremation, wake, someone reads “Crossing the Bar,” crank up some Pink Floyd and drink” it can make it a hella less stressful.
(Someone who had to do the funeral arrangements for someone who didn’t leave clear instructions - and then had the family arguing about what needed to be done - with lots of stress and recriminations and “that isn’t what he would have wanted” and “but that isn’t what I want” - and then three months later - we found the instructions :smack:)
The only music I want is the sound of nature. I told me daughter I want to be cremated and have my ashes mixed with my hearing dog then taken to the woods and throw toward the river . I don’t want to waste land ,I want to save it for the livings and wildlife. I will also want my dog I have to be cremated if he dies after I do and also have his ashes mixed in too . I told a lawyer I wanted to have my ashes mixed with my hearing dog ashes and the lawyer put in my will " to mix the ashes well " LOL!
Paul Simon, “Graceland”
And my traveling companions
Are ghosts and empty sockets
I’m looking at ghosts and empties
But I’ve reason to believe
We all will be received
In Graceland
Roxy Music, “More Than This”
I could feel at the time
There was no way of knowing
Fallen leaves in the night
Who can say where they’re blowing
As free as the wind
And hopefully learning
Why the sea on the tide
Has no way of turning
George Harrison, “Hear Me Lord”
At both ends of the road
To the left and the right
Above and below us
Out and in, there’s no place that you’re not in
Oh, won’t you hear me, Lord
Mass:
Sing With All The Saints in Glory
How Can I Keep From Singing?
What Wondrous Love Is This*
Love Divine All Loves Excelling
*Because it contains the excellent:
And when from death I’m free, I’ll sing on, I’ll sing on
And when from death I’m free, I’ll sing on
And when from death I’m free, I’ll sing and joyful be
And through eternity I’ll sing on!
Than I have a Death Mix playlist I want burned onto thumb drives for attendees which contains a bunch of favorites having to do with friendship and love and excitement about the next life.
Jimi Hendrix. Angel.
I hear ya on that one. I cantor Catholic funerals and if I have to sing that one more time … gah.
I’m going for Mozart’s Requiem Mass in D Minor. Live with orchestra. Most larger choirs know it so it wouldn’t be impossible to find singers. If I could pull out all the stops I’d go for Bach’s Mass in B Minor. That would kick my ass right up to the pearly gates.
I’ll rise from the cremains if I hear Amazing Grace. I hate that song. Hateithatehateit.
I’d like Ava Maria, In the Garden, How Great Thou Art, Bringing in the Sheaves.
Paint it Black and Sympathy for the Devil by the Stones
The Leader of the Pack – who was it, the Shirelles?
I Hold Your Hand in Mine and Poisoning Pigeons in the Park – Tom Lehrer
We’ll Meet Again – Vera Lynn
Down to the River to Pray and Whiskey Lullabye – Alison Krauss
Bad Things – Jace Everett
5-10??? Why would I put anyone through that? Will my enemies be forced at gunpoint to sit there??
Anyway, “Funeral for a Friend” and on the second half, I’m going to bust out of the coffin and play a rocking guitar solo.
Heh. I was born in 1968 just in time for the 1970s wasteland of Catholic music, so of course my best friend’s funeral (1988) featured OEW. Flash forward 20+ years to a friend’s daughter’s funeral – again with the OEW! NOOOO!
Whenever there is some amorphous glurge being sung, I always look down and (c) 1987. And it’s someone like Marty Haugen or Iona Community. 
Surprise me.
The Hebrew Slaves Chorus from Nabucco. Probably the most beautiful chorus ever written.
Night on Bald Mountain, by Mussorgsky, just because it would freak people out.
The Stroke, Billy Squier because of its solid rock construction.
Unsquare Dance, Brubeck Quartet because it’s a bit confusing.
A Song For You, as sung by Ruby Wilson
OK, OK, OK.
Start off with Gimme Shelter by the Stones, then blend into Let the Sunshine In by The Fifth Dimension, and segue into Into the West by Annie Lennox.
You got it, honey! And do the same for me if I go before you.
Hallelujah (Shrek version)
Hell’s Bells - AC/DC
Friends in Low Places - Garth Brooks
Hounddog - Elvis
Take Me Home (Country Roads) - John Denver
Amazing Grace
What A Wonderful World - Louis Armstrong
William Tell Overture for the finale (The Lone Range song)
I want to mix it up with a little ambiguity and confusion the same way I live my life.
Aside from normal Jewish music, I think I’d like someone to play the Indigo Girls’ “Closer to Fine.” I think it’s appropriate, and it’s also close to my heart, because on the day of my college graduation, which was an outdoor ceremony with no alternative location, it was raining in sheets when I woke up, so I skipped it, and made a pot of tea, which I drank by myself, while I played this song over and over on the stereo. It’s about knuckling under and finishing college, and by having a certain amount of higher learning, earning the right to question authority, and when authority doesn’t answer, ultimately be OK with ambiguity. The less you look to other people for the secret to life, the closer you are to “fine.” But part of the point of it is that you do need to jump through the hoops first, or it’s just rebellion, not wisdom.
But other than that, I would stick to Jewish music. Call me old fashioned. Or observant. I think most people find tradition and fulfilled expectations comforting.
Led Zeppelin, The Rain Song.
Beyond that, play whatever is requested by whoever decides to show up to my memorial party. Yes, party - we’ve been to enough damn funerals and memorial services that neither of us want some sad, depressing, drawn-out last goodbye. Have a drink or three, toast my urn, remember the good times and the fun, and point & laugh at all the goofy pictures that someone will almost certainly make into a collage.
Jeez, can I come? That sounds fun.
I would like “Ding Dong the Witch is Dead” from The Wizard of Oz (an instrumental version so that the realization can break slowly over the attendee[s]).
Also, please play Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Free Bird” because I may get up out of the casket to turn it off.