So if you had to pick just ONE song to be played at your funeral/memorial/commemorative event that really spoke to who you were and would have your loved ones smiling, laughing, and/or crying when it played as you lay there peacefully in your coffin or urn… what would it be?
I just now had an epiphany about my funeral song. I’m seriously considering Flagpole Sitterhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1xzxDRA93Nk by Harvey Danger. I love this song, and it contains what may very well be my favorite song line ever- they put me in the hospital for nerves and then they had to commit me, you told them all I was crazy, they cut off my legs now I’m an amputee, goddamn you". Cracks me up every time, still.
Not only is the song fun, funny, silly, and life-affirming in a strange way, there’s the line “I’m so hot, 'cause I’m in hell”, which would be funny to me seeing as how I’m an atheist. I hope that my loved ones would also find it funny, but I don’t know.
What song would you pick to be played? Somber and serious, fun and silly, obscure or popular, worded or instrumental- pick ONE, and I know how difficult that is for some of you but please.
Appropo of nothing last summer, my parents dropped the bomb that in the event of a memorial service my father would like Drop Kick Me, Jesus, through the Goal Posts of Life" by Bobby Bare, while my mom would like One Toke Over the Line by Brewer and Shipley played.
No music for me. In fact, no funeral, because a) I believe in cremation, and b) I never got my shit together enough to have a real life or any true friends, so truthfully nobody is going to give a shit. I have my mom and dad for a little while longer; once they’re gone, I’ll have some pets or something and maybe some fellow drinkers, and then there’ll be nobody.
I’d kind of hope that there’s going to be a performance of the B Minor Mass, or Britten’s War Requiem in a cathedral, somewhere. I’ll probably have to put up with The Smiths’ “There is a light that never goes out”, Joy Division’s “New dawn fades”, Neil Young’s “Old Man” and the Velvet Underground’s “What goes on” in some nondescript Co-op funeral parlour.
Some orchestral piece with organs or strings. I would say Tocata and Fugue in D Minor but that’s a bit too heavy and cliched. Or nothing, depending on how life turns out between now and then. I’d only be buried if I were to get married and my now widowed spouse were insistent upon it. Funerals are for the living and all that. Failing a meaningful long term relationship (which I do not expect), I’ll probably get cremated or donate my body to science, or something.
That said, I definitely know what my epitaph would be if I were to be buried – MacBeth’s “tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow” soliloquy from Act 5, scene 5 of the same play.
Unless someone does a song before I shuffle off this mortal coil about taking the express hand basket straight to hell …
More seriously, if someone could honestly sing Terry’s Song for me, I’d have died a happy man.
OK, those are for me. But at that point I’ll be gone, and then it should be about helping those I’ve left behind. I always found the Mourner’s Kaddish to be a great comfort. I hope my survivors would also. My favorite translation of the last lines “May the Father of peace bring peace to all who mourn.” Amen.
I actually have the funeral CD with the executors and on it is a better version of Louis Armstrong doing (I’ll be glad when you’re dead)"You Rascal You. I can’t get hyperlinks to work today, so here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wOKV_SVJBOU&feature=related
