What Song for Your Funeral?

Subject: RE: What Song for Your Funeral?
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 18 Nov 20 - 08:54 PM

Sadly at least a couple of people from the top of this thread have departed. I hope they got their wishes.
And "The Joy of Living" was one of the songs at another funeral I attended before lockdown.
Have been at several where the deceased's own recordings were used: quite surreal, but very appropriate and touching.

---

This thread is drawing a lot of Spam, so I'm going to close it. Please use one of the other threads crosslinked above. -Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: What Song for Your Funeral?
From: fat B****rd
Date: 16 Nov 20 - 04:12 PM

Coincidentally, Elmore, I've asked my step-daughter to read the passage from Ecclesiastes that your song is based on.
Charlie

Subject: RE: What Song for Your Funeral?
From: GUEST,saulgoldie
Date: 16 Nov 20 - 08:43 AM

Gallus Moll & JHW,

Totally agree!

Saul

Subject: RE: What Song for Your Funeral?
From: GUEST,JHW
Date: 16 Nov 20 - 06:36 AM

'don't you always feel at a funeral...that the one person you really want to be there - is missing?'
Absolutely

Subject: RE: What Song for Your Funeral?
From: Elmore
Date: 16 Nov 20 - 01:26 AM

On a lighter note, "Death Letter Blues". Might need a few lyric alterations.

Subject: RE: What Song for Your Funeral?
From: Elmore
Date: 16 Nov 20 - 12:58 AM

"Turn, Turn, Turn."

Subject: RE: What Song for Your Funeral?
From: GUEST,Lin
Date: 15 Nov 20 - 09:01 PM

"Dust In the Wind" by Kansas

Subject: RE: What Song for Your Funeral?
From: Gallus Moll
Date: 15 Nov 20 - 05:25 PM

More to the point, as we reach a certain stage of life, we should be considering having an annual wake with as many friends as can gather each year. Spend a day and an night in guid company, drink toasts and make speeches, sing all the good songs of our generation in wonderful harmony!
Then at the following year's gathering, if one or two are missing, having gone to Tir nan Og - the memory of their company and their singing will still be fresh in our hearts...... don't you always feel at a funeral, specially the purvey and after-ceilidh, that the one person you really want to be there - is missing?
Far better to gather and sing while life is in you!

Subject: RE: What Song for Your Funeral?
From: Geordie-Peorgie
Date: 15 Nov 20 - 10:28 AM

Coming in - “Drunk!” By Ron Trueman-Border
Thoughtful bit - “Brothers In Arms” by Dire straits
Going out - “Slip Sliding Away” by Paul Simon

And, if there’s time, “No Regrets” by The Walker Brothers!

Subject: RE: What Song for Your Funeral?
From: GUEST,saulgoldie
Date: 15 Nov 20 - 09:49 AM

I second "Handful of Songs" also "Parting Glass" and "While I'm Here"
Oh, and "Finnegan's Wake"

AND...

I believe this was written by John Denver

Damn The Man That Dares to Let My Farewell Party Die

Don't want no tears shed for me when I'm gone,
Don't want nobody to sing no melancholy song,
Don't want your partin' words to become my eulogy ---
Just have a ragtime band to play when you say goodbye to me.

So keep that whiskey flowin', boys, and raise your glasses high,
I'm pleased to see you're here to say "Farewell" and not "Goodbye."
So keep that whiskey flowin', boys and raise your glasses high
And Damn the man that dares to let my farewell party die.

Don't want no organ music bringin' people down,
Don't want no long-faced mourners always hangin' 'round,
Don't want no candles, ah, but let the flowers stay ---
Girls can wear them in their hair when they see me on my way.

Roll the carpet back, my boys, and let the dancin' start,
Sing all the good old songs and don't forget my part.
Invite all the girls I've known and make sure they have fun ---
Hug and kiss 'em all for me like you know I would have done.

So keep that whiskey flowin', boys, and raise your glasses high,
I'm pleased to see you're here to say "Farewell" and not "Goodbye."
So keep that whiskey flowin', boys and raise your glasses high
And Damn the man that dares to let my farewell party die.

So keep that whiskey flowin', boys, and raise your glasses high,
I'm pleased to see you're here to say "Farewell" and not "Goodbye."
So keep that whiskey flowin', boys and raise your glasses high
And Damn the man that dares to let my farewell party die.

AND...
From the Mill Run Dulcimer Band

Sing Me A Song

As I travel through this life, midst the struggle and the strife,
Though the days may be weary and long,
As I search for happiness, I find peace and rest,
When I sit down and sing me a song.

(cho.)
Sing me a song
Sing me a song
When I come to the end of my journey,
I know it won’t be long,
Til I cross Death’s silent river,
Don’t you cry, just sing me a song.

Though our burdens are not light, always fighting for the right
Everything seems to always go wrong,
We could find peace of mind if together we would find,
Time to sit down and sing just one song.

cho.

When I cross that other shore, and I meet loved ones once more,
Join in that happy angel throng,
If I could forever sing, let the hallelujahs ring,
I’d be singing the hallelujah song.

Subject: RE: What Song for Your Funeral?
From: GUEST
Date: 15 Nov 20 - 07:13 AM

I see I've been on here before but now would note Bill D 26June20.
Last year I sang (requested) 'What is the Life of a Man' to a full church gathered for a regular attender, staunch folkie as well as church goer, alas being seen off.

Subject: RE: What Song for Your Funeral?
From: GUEST,Gealt
Date: 15 Nov 20 - 06:36 AM

Knock Three Times.

Subject: RE: What Song for Your Funeral?
From: GUEST,Sol
Date: 15 Nov 20 - 05:54 AM

"Everytime We Say Goodbye" - Ella Fitzgerald
Class.

Subject: RE: What Song for Your Funeral?
From: Neil D
Date: 15 Nov 20 - 05:25 AM

did you ever have the feeling

Subject: RE: What Song for Your Funeral?
From: GUEST,Guest
Date: 27 Jun 20 - 06:27 PM

swing low sweet chariot

Subject: RE: What Song for Your Funeral?
From: Murpholly
Date: 26 Jun 20 - 06:04 PM

The older I getm my friends practice my funeral song at least once a year:- "Isn't it grand boys to be bloody well dead". That will do for me.

Subject: RE: What Song for Your Funeral?
From: fat B****rd
Date: 26 Jun 20 - 03:54 PM

On the way in - The Promenade from Pictures AT An Exhibition
During the quiet bit - Meet on The Ledge
Into The Fiery Furnace - The Ride Of The Valkyries*
After - See Me . Feel Me

*I thought of "Goodbye" by Josef Locke. Bit that would be corny :-}

Subject: RE: What Song for Your Funeral?
From: JHW
Date: 26 Jun 20 - 03:53 PM

Year or two ago went to funeral of BW at a Crem. For exit music they played the man himself singing the Kielder Hunt. Lots of verses, I thought they'd fade it but they didn't and all the audience stayed until it finished. So I guess I'd let someone choose me singing something. Its really for the benefit of those attending. Won't matter to me by then. They might choose somebody else.

Subject: RE: What Song for Your Funeral?
From: Bill D
Date: 26 Jun 20 - 03:38 PM

well...this is about the 4th or 5th thread on the topic. Looking thru them I see that a certain number of us have already gone.

I'm gonna, for any memorial service/wake..(no funeral with coffin... maybe a few ashes in a wooden thing I made).. stick with the one I posted in 2001

Subject: Lyr Add: WHAT'S THE LIFE OF A MAN?
From: Bill D - PM
Date: 24 Feb 01 - 07:09 PM

WHAT'S THE LIFE OF A MAN


As I was a walking one morning at ease
A viewing the leaves as they fell from the trees
All in slow motion appearing to be
And those that had withered, they fell from the trees


What's the life of a man anymore than the leaves
A man has his season, so why should we grieve
Though all thru this life, we appear fine and gay
Like the leaves we will wither and soon fade away


If you'd seen the leaves just a few days ago
So beautiful and bright they all seemed to grow
A frost came upon them and withered them all
A storm came upon them and down they did fall


If you look in the churchyard, there you will see
Those that have passed like the leaves from the trees
When age and affliction upon us do fall
Like the leaves we must wither and down we must fall.


I also said in another thread that I don't intend to go.. but just have the wake for fun...

Subject: RE: What Song for Your Funeral?
From: Donuel
Date: 25 Jun 20 - 07:35 PM

Daphne&Chloe and Ashokans farewell is long enough.
At my wedding it was Pictures at an Exhibition

Subject: Cearcall a' Chuain
From: Felipa
Date: 25 Jun 20 - 07:26 PM

Cearcall a' Chuain

When I'm Gone (Phil Ochs)
and I also like The Joys of Living by Ewan MacZColl, already mentioned in the discussion.

Subject: RE: What Song for Your Funeral?
From: SPB-Cooperator
Date: 25 Jun 20 - 06:35 AM

or maybe a very long Child ballad in original dialect.

Subject: RE: What Song for Your Funeral?
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 25 Jun 20 - 04:13 AM

Leap Up And Down wave Your Knickers In The Air

Subject: RE: What Song for Your Funeral?
From: Senoufou
Date: 25 Jun 20 - 03:50 AM

I would like them to play Enya singing 'Na Laetha Geal M'Oige'.
(From her album Watermark)
and Asha Bhosle singing 'Justajoo jis kee thee' (from the film Umrao Jaan)
They each translate into this:
'I never found what I was seeking, but in the search I learned much about the world. The promise of my youth was never fulfilled.'

Subject: RE: What Song for Your Funeral?
From: The Sandman
Date: 25 Jun 20 - 02:54 AM

spb coop, i thought you would choose old maui

Subject: RE: What Song for Your Funeral?
From: BobL
Date: 25 Jun 20 - 02:49 AM

I would like to have "All is Well" from the shape note tradition (either the version in Northern Harmony, or else Peter Amidon's arrangement of the Sacred Harp one), and/or the West Gallery hymn known as "The Shropshire Funaral (sic) Hymn". However, I've been unable to get to either type of gathering for so long that I'm probably now only a distant memory to most of the SH and WG regulars, and the choir at my parish church aren't all happy with anything out of the ordinary. I may have to settle for whatever New Moon Morris can come up with (I have asked that they attend in full kit BTW).

But in any case, unless I outlive the present pandemic - which I suspect will continue for years yet, whatever science may discover and politics like to pretend - I fear it's likely to be a short private service.

Subject: RE: What Song for Your Funeral?
From: SPB-Cooperator
Date: 24 Jun 20 - 05:29 AM

That is a very good question, and if I was to put this in my will it would cost me a fortune every time I change my mind.

I can think of three ways of looking at it:

(1) Do I want choices based on what I like - but unless I would be their in spirit to hear them for the last time that wouldn't achieve anything?

(2) Do a want to choose what 'the audience' would like to hear and dignified send off?

(3) Do I choose a song with a message beyond the grave? One that comes to mind is Tears and Pavan by Strawbs with the wonderful first line "Where are the tears, you should be crying right now?"

Definite no-no would be the over sentimental and stoic cliches.

If I was to make a choice about how I feel at the moment, it would probably be two Czech folk songs by Cechomor Mezi Horami (between the mountains) and Nepudem Domu (We aren't going home.... until the sun rises).

Subject: RE: What Song for Your Funeral?
From: GUEST,freespiritceol1
Date: 21 Jun 14 - 03:38 AM

Some say the devil is dead (and buried in
killarney).

Subject: RE: What Song for Your Funeral?
From: AlbertsLion
Date: 21 Jun 14 - 02:32 AM

Let the Mystery Be - Iris DeMent, Trans Atlantic Session recording does it for me and Steve Earle's Pilgrim sung by friend Bob Fish.

Subject: RE: What Song for Your Funeral?
From: J-boy
Date: 21 Jun 14 - 01:49 AM

John Cage's 4'33".

Subject: RE: What Song for Your Funeral?
From: Guy Wolff
Date: 20 Jun 14 - 11:50 PM

I love both of these but I would also like anything from Orlando Gibins . My wife is early music so thats more likely .

These are both so good

Oh Come Angle Band

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_M65lcDk6o

After the Sunrise ..


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3p1-yI6ZOqs&feature=kp

Subject: RE: What Song for Your Funeral?
From: GUEST,Janelle
Date: 20 Jun 14 - 11:45 PM

"Dust in the Wind" by Kansas

"All we are is dust in the wind."

Subject: RE: What Song for Your Funeral?
From: LadyJean
Date: 20 Jun 14 - 11:32 PM

"I Keep So Busy Praising My Jesus" I like to give people a laugh.

Subject: RE: What Song for Your Funeral?
From: PHJim
Date: 20 Jun 14 - 12:02 PM

My brother Dave sang us this song Bob Dylan'sMake You Feel My Love for his own funeral. We found it among his tapes and decided it was just the thing.
I have sung "My Buddy" and Todd Snider's "I Feel Like Missing You Today" at funerals, but I have trouble thinking of a song for my funeral...maybe Tommy Thompson's "I've Got Plans".

Subject: RE: What Song for Your Funeral?
From: voyager
Date: 20 Jun 14 - 11:22 AM

I'll be singing this one -

Dying Crapshooter Blues - Willie McTell

Eight crapshooters to be my pallbearers
Let 'em be veiled down in black
I want nine men going to the graveyard, buddy
I want eight men coming back

I want a gang of gamblers gathered 'round my coffin-side
Crooked card printed on my hearse
My life has been a doggone curse

Well, well, well, well
Send poker players to the graveyard, buddy
Dig my grave with the ace of spades
I want twelve polices in my funeral march
High sheriff playin' blackjack, lead the parade

I want the judge and solic'ter who jailed me fourty times
Put a pair of dice in my shoes, what else
Let a deck of cards be my tombstone, buddy
I got the dying crapshooter blues

Sixteen real good crapshooters
Sixteen bootleggers to sing a song
I want sixteen racket men gamblin'
Couple tend bar while I'm rollin' along
Read more at http://www.songlyrics.com/moriarty/the-dying-crapshooter-blues-lyrics/#idJYQGY20FGGgXjT.99

let the mourners find their own tune.

voyager

Subject: RE: What Song for Your Funeral?
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 20 Jun 14 - 08:57 AM

Well the time did come for my Dad, whom I mentioned up the thread in Sept 09: he left us on Christmas Day 2010. And we did have "Crossing the Bar" as the coffin was taken from the church. It was beautiful.

Since then, I got asked to sing at a funeral, Dave Webber's "Parting Song". The first I knew of that little plan was at the door of the crematorium, when the bereaved lady's daughter asked if her mother had said anything to me about singing! She hadn't! We had sung it in a song workshop the week before, and I had known it for a lot longer. The words had been printed in the order of service, and the minister had been told I would be singing it. So, as I stepped up to the front with knees quaking, I was about to ask the organist for a start note, when he started playing it (fortunately in a singable key!). I thanked him afterwards and asked how he knew it as it's not a very well-known song up here in Scotland. "Oh, I just looked it up on Youtube this morning"! Seat of the pants stuff!

Subject: RE: What Song for Your Funeral?
From: GUEST,phil cooper on spouse's laptop
Date: 20 Jun 14 - 08:27 AM

I saw this thread refreshed. I had an older brother pass away in 2011. Susan and I helped pick out songs to sing for a memorial. It turns out I got to sing a lot of songs I wouldn't mind being sung at my memorial. We did wind up singing Dave Carter's When I Go, also his song Gentle Soldier of my Soul. I found Chris Smithers' song Lay the Old Man Down. We also got the four members of the Bittersweet Christmas Band to sing David Francey's Saints and Sinners. The service was more musical than many, as you might suppose. It also didn't necessarily please some of my fundamentalist relatives. However my brother was agnostic and his daughter wanted a memorial that was true to who her dad was.

Subject: RE: What Song for Your Funeral?
From: Black belt caterpillar wrestler
Date: 20 Jun 14 - 08:24 AM

I have always thought that "The Duke of Marlborough's Fanfare" from "Alright Jack" by "Home Service" is the perfect piece for the coffin to pass through the curtains at a cremation. As for songs, we'll if you believe in reincarnation how about "Embryo" from "Pink Floyd"!

Subject: RE: What Song for Your Funeral?
From: GUEST,donmeixner
Date: 20 Jun 14 - 07:21 AM

Ill Be Seeing You.

Subject: RE: What Song for Your Funeral?
From: GUEST,eldergirl
Date: 20 Jun 14 - 06:14 AM

Where the Lion Stands, by Pete Ryder.
Always, by Note for a Child. Lady of the North, by Gene Clark.
And any of the songs we've sung as friends together, how about Rollin' Up, Rollin' Down? :-) x el

Subject: RE: What Song for Your Funeral?
From: Dennis the Elder
Date: 20 Jun 14 - 05:39 AM

Keith Marsden's "Funeral Song" seems most apt for my funeral, however I have a lot of work to do first to make it realistic.
If I look very tiered if you see me, you will know I have started on my task.

Subject: RE: What Song for Your Funeral?
From: GUEST,LK867
Date: 20 Jun 14 - 02:29 AM

Frédéric Chopin's Piano Sonata No. 2 in B-flat minor, Op. 35, popularly known as The Funeral March.

Subject: RE: What Song for Your Funeral?
From: GUEST,Billy Weeks
Date: 20 Jun 14 - 01:16 AM

Easy Street

Subject: RE: What Song for Your Funeral?
From: GUEST,Guest - Lin
Date: 29 Nov 10 - 02:19 AM

"Dust In The Wind" by the band Kansas

"Song of the Wandering Angeus" - Donovan

"Be Not Too Hard" sung by Joan Baez (written by Donovan)

"Sand and Foam" - Donovan

"Unfinished Life" - Kate Wolf

"Song of the Candle" - Stan Rogers

"Fhir a Bhata" sung by Sandy Denny

Probably not enough time for all these songs at a funeral but in my life these are some of my very favourite songs and my favourite artists. Well...the group Kansas is not a favourite group but have always loved that one song of theirs.

Subject: RE: What Song for Your Funeral?
From: andrew e
Date: 29 Nov 10 - 02:12 AM

Henry Purcell

Thou Knowest Lord The Secrets Of Our Hearts.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pf_84OQgZSg

I'm not "religious" but just love this style of sacred music.

We sing this one in a choir I direct.

Subject: RE: What Song for Your Funeral?
From: GUEST,Jon
Date: 29 Nov 10 - 01:33 AM

I'd probably ask for 2 these day Bloody Well Dead

and my favourite of all hymns which is I Heard The Voice Of Jesus Say

Subject: RE: What Song for Your Funeral?
From: Joe Offer
Date: 28 Nov 10 - 10:18 PM

I'd like this version of the traditional Catholic funeral hymn, In Paradisum. It's called "Song of Farewell," composed by Ernest Sands:

May the choirs of angels come to greet you.
May they speed you to paradise.
May the Lord enfold you in his mercy.
May you find eternal life.

I'm helping a friend plan a funeral for his wife just now, and I suggested this one.

-Joe-

Subject: RE: What Song for Your Funeral?
From: stevi
Date: 25 Aug 10 - 11:14 AM

That's life by Frank Sinatra. Riding high in April shot down in May! I just pick myself up and get back in the race. That's how I would like to be remembered.



Steve

Subject: RE: What Song for Your Funeral?
From: buddhuu
Date: 25 Aug 10 - 09:04 AM

'The Parting Glass'





...or Motorhead's 'Killed by Death'

Subject: RE: What Song for Your Funeral?
From: Desi C
Date: 25 Aug 10 - 08:15 AM

I felt after reading your post, I want a invite to your funeral, I really would. As for me I had pretty much the same thoughts as yourself after a musical visit to my home town of Kilkenny last September, and I was inspired to write m own song to 'pass on' by, It's called Singing In Kilkenny. By chance when back in Kilkenny this july the new Mayor heard me singing it and has adopted it for his term of office, so I want to be dispatched to that and I guess it's a way of leaving something of MY otherwise wasted life behind, here's the first verse

They'll be singing in Kilkenny when it's time for me to go
Sweet songs in my memory, in tones soft and low
Songs of dear old Ireland, and rebels so long ago
They'll be singing in Kilkenny when I go

(c) Desi C 20009 all rights reserved

I'd also suggest
No Regrets
Sing As We Go
Going Underground
A Daisy A Day
Desi C xx