What song do you want at your funeral?

Subject: RE: What song do you want at your funeral?
From: bill\sables
Date: 25 Feb 01 - 06:51 PM

I Think I would like Rick Fielding to sing A Handfull of Songs
Bill

Subject: RE: What song do you want at your funeral?
From:
Date: 25 Feb 01 - 10:24 PM

let me fish off cape st. mary's mg

Subject: RE: What song do you want at your funeral?
From: leprechaun
Date: 25 Feb 01 - 10:46 PM

"Bright Eyes" by Art Garfunkle to make everybody cry. "Finnegan's Wake" to make everybody laugh.

Subject: RE: What song do you want at your funeral?
From: CamiSu
Date: 25 Feb 01 - 11:01 PM

Feeling a bit low so I would probably be too sad to choose well right now, BUT for my father I sang My Lord What a Morning and Swing Low, and everyone sang Harry Chapin's "Circle". We also seriously considered having my brother run in late with the ashes, as Daddy was always late to everything.

Maybe for me

My Lord What a Morning

Jesus Christ the Apple Tree

something happy and that everyone can sing.

Cami Su

Subject: RE: What song do you want at your funeral?
From: Rick Fielding
Date: 25 Feb 01 - 11:05 PM

If ya beat me to it Bill, consider it done! Thanks.

Rick

Subject: RE: What song do you want at your funeral?
From: cowboypoet
Date: 25 Feb 01 - 11:32 PM

In the other thread I mentioned that I'd like to have Bill Staines' song "River" sung at my funeral. As nearly all the people who want to see me off are musicians I'd rather have it played at a wake and skip the funeral all together. I look at it this way -- *somebody* should be having a good time.

Probably sounds morbid, but some while back I had to have some minor surgery, and as it's always the people who go in to have a hangnail removed who end up taking the long dirt nap I made some preparations just in case. One of those preparations was a tape of all the songs I'd like to "hear" one last time. These included, but were not limited to, the following:

"Colorado" by Chuck Pyle "My Proud Mountains" by Townes Van Zandt "Cortelia Clark" by Mickey Newbury "Let Him Roll" by Guy Clark "Carry Me Back To the Lone Prairie" by the Sons of the Pioneers "Beetlebaum" by Spike Jones and the City Slickers ("And there goes the winner...")

But the one I'm most looking forward to is my best friend singing "Sweet Baby James," not because I like it particularly but because he loathes it. He'd do it under the circumstances and I've have the last laugh, which would be *very* satisfactory.

Subject: RE: What song do you want at your funeral?
From: GUEST,Norton1
Date: 25 Feb 01 - 11:32 PM

From the Halls of Montezuma
To the shores of Tripoli
We fight our Country's battles
On the air and on the sea
First to fight for right and Freedom
First to fight to keep our Honor clean
We are proud to claim the title of United States Marine

If the Army and the Navy
Ever look on Heaven's scene
They will find their wives are sleeping
With United States Marines

And then the whole damn gang can drink booze and play music till dawn.
The last guy we put under wanted to be shot out of a mortar. So we built one, loaded him up in 12 empty Budweiser cans (his favorite) with a small charge of black powder inside, and launched him out over the Oregon Desert to our accompanying cheers. Had a riotous good time!

Subject: RE: What song do you want at your funeral?
From: WyoWoman
Date: 25 Feb 01 - 11:39 PM

The Hokey Pokey, of course, sung by the Norman Crab and Apple Choire of the NYCFTS.

ww

Subject: RE: What song do you want at your funeral?
From: nutty
Date: 26 Feb 01 - 05:05 AM

The choice would be difficult but these are possibilities.........

The Joy of Living ... by Ewan MacColl

Here is my Home .... by Si Khan
Farewell Shanty
Never Grow Old
When All Men Sing ... Scowcroft/Gifford

Above all I would want a send off that people would remember as a joyous occasion

Subject: RE: What song do you want at your funeral?
From: Joe Offer
Date: 26 Feb 01 - 05:21 AM

Gee, I was going to be really original and say Who Will Sing For Me, but I see it's already been mentioned three times. That being the case, would Rick Fielding please recite Reincarnation for me? Goin' Home might be nice, if somebody can find lyrics that aren't too racist and aren't too bowdlerized.
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: What song do you want at your funeral?
From: KingBrilliant
Date: 26 Feb 01 - 06:09 AM

The Parting Glass & Best Years of Our Lives

Kris

Subject: RE: What song do you want at your funeral?
From: Jimmy C
Date: 26 Feb 01 - 10:25 AM

For me it will be
What a wonderful world
The Parting Glass
The Coolin
all following a real bang up wake where the cops have to be called to quieten things down after my family and friends have been drinking Canada Dry - and I don't mean Ginger Ale.

Subject: RE: What song do you want at your funeral?
From: LR Mole
Date: 26 Feb 01 - 10:25 AM

"Comin' Back to Me" ,Jefferson Airplane, "Among the Rollin' Hills," Van Morrison, and either "It Makes No Difference" or "The Shape I'm In" by the Band.

Subject: RE: What song do you want at your funeral?
From: GUEST,Fibula Mattock
Date: 26 Feb 01 - 10:43 AM

"Ae Fond Kiss" and "The Parting Glass" at the funeral, but the wake is a different matter. At the wake I'd just like a hell of a lot of singing and plenty of playing, including a couple of John Denver songs and my dad singing El Paso or Coulter's Candy (diverse, I know, but they remind me of my childhood). If my Uncle Metal-Detector would sing "Miss Mouse's Ball" and "Halfway Up the Stairs" that would also be great. And my mandolin and guitar-playing pals doing "Arthur McBride" and their equally good but slightly crude "STD"...Oh, and a version of Fiddlers Green would be great to remind me of my favourite pub which shares its name. And could someone organise a couple of West Kerry sets on the wooden floor in the kitchen?

Subject: RE: What song do you want at your funeral?
From: GUEST,Pete Peterson at work
Date: 26 Feb 01 - 11:38 AM

Northfield. Page 155 in the Sacred harp. With ALL the verses please. 2nd choice, Amsterdam, from the same source. (Sung that at my father's funeral; my mother got O God, our help in ages past ((once an Episcopalian, always an Episcopalian)) )

Subject: RE: What song do you want at your funeral?
From: wysiwyg
Date: 26 Feb 01 - 11:49 AM

Joe, I think I have Goin' Home for ya. If you like my style that is-- you've heard my style on tape, so you can decide. We have done it on Saturday nights. I learned it a the funeral of a friend of Hardiman's, an Episcopal deacon. I've never heard it before or since, so I hope I haven't messed up the melody too much. You can correct me from heaven when the time comes, OK? *G*G* I'll tune in so I can hear you.

Morts, I never thought of this till you asked. There was a time in my life when I thought it would be "Bury Me in My Overalls," but now I've decided on cremation and I think people would get confused. Plus I'd hate to waste a good pair of Oshkosh B'Gosh in the fire.

But since you DID ask, all that comes to mind now is, "Wake Up Little Susie!"

Now I can't resist the idea of requiring that the choir do this one! So now when they do this at my funeral, someone will have to explain that you brought it about! *G*

~S~

Subject: RE: What song do you want at your funeral?
From: SINSULL
Date: 26 Feb 01 - 11:50 AM

No funeral. I want to be cremated and tossed around a garden or on the ocean. Celebrate my life with a party not my death with morbid floral arrangements and sad songs.

Subject: RE: What song do you want at your funeral?
From: GUEST
Date: 26 Feb 01 - 12:55 PM

I like "Meet on the Ledge" by Fairport, too. Another one that is just so poignantly beautiful is an instrumental by the Albion Band called "Half Each"

Subject: RE: What song do you want at your funeral?
From: Amergin
Date: 26 Feb 01 - 01:03 PM

I don't really want to be buried....I want to be stuffed and stowed by the fire place....and maybe Mary Ellen Carter as they prop me up against the wall....I think I'd make a great family heirloom...

Subject: RE: What song do you want at your funeral?
From: GUEST,Bruce O.
Date: 26 Feb 01 - 05:23 PM

Re: Mary's Dream. The author, John Lowe, is buried somewhere in northern Virginia. Does anyone know where?

As to my funeral song, it's between H. Poole's "Finigan's Wake" and "Rock Around the Clock". Decisions, decisions; maybe I'll just have both.

Subject: RE: What song do you want at your funeral?
From: ray bucknell
Date: 26 Feb 01 - 08:19 PM

I attended a memorial service recently for the husband of a friend. I didn't really know him at all, but upon leaving the service (which was surprisingly upbeat), I felt as though I knew him a bit. They played some Jimmy Buffett song at the service (one with which I was not familiar) and it gave me an idea: When I'm on my journey don't you grieve after me, (repeat twice more) I don't want you to grieve after me." "On My Journey" was recorded by the Chad Mitchell Trio in 1961 on the "Mighty Day On Campus" album. It seems to be a traditional song. CMT fan that I am and have always been, I guess it would only be appropriate to play that song at my MEMORIAL SERVICE (funerals are too morbid). Ray

Subject: RE: What song do you want at your funeral?
From: Amos
Date: 26 Feb 01 - 10:11 PM

Now, Patty O'Reilly ducked his head,
As a barrel of whiskey flew at him.
The barrel broke upon the bed,
And the whiskey fell all over Tim!

Now, Tim revives! See how he's rising!
Timothy rising from the bed!
Saying, "THROW YER WHISKEY AROUND LIKE BLAZES!!!"

"HOLLAMAROUGHAH!! DID YE THINK I WAS DEAD??!!!"

Then I just float off LAFFIN!!!!!!!!

A

Subject: RE: What song do you want at your funeral?
From: Rich(bodhránai gan ciall)
Date: 26 Feb 01 - 10:17 PM

Morning has Broken

Angel Band

Táimse seo choladh (on low whistle)

The God That Never Fails



and of course,

If you're happy and you know it.

Subject: RE: What song do you want at your funeral?
From: JedMarum
Date: 26 Feb 01 - 10:20 PM

I don't care; I won't be there - so whatever my family and friends think is appropriate will be fine with me!

Subject: RE: What song do you want at your funeral?
From: FOG(Friend of Gnome)
Date: 27 Feb 01 - 09:42 PM

My will stipulates that my friends should gather on the shores of Wastwater at the Southern end looking up the lake .They will play Jon Harvisons version of Seasons in the sun 'Want you to dance ,want you to cry, to be crazy and enjoy, To dance round and round when they put me in the ground. Someone will then recite ,Now is the time for the burning of the leaves< by Lawrence Binyon. Then there will be Nimrod by Sir Edward Elgar from the 'Enigma' Varioations. This is to be the 1958 recording with Sir John Barbirolli and the Halle orchestra. Then after the last strains of Elgar have faded over that most dark and beautiful of English lakes My friends will all piss off to the nearest hostelry and get absolutely mortal on the grand I have left behind the bar.

Subject: RE: What song do you want at your funeral?
From: Doctor Z
Date: 27 Feb 01 - 09:57 PM

My personal favorite is Tom Paxton's "Forest Lawn", which is known in California as the Disneyland of the Dead.

The song describes a fictitious funeral with all the trappings, including "a hundred strolling strings and topless dancers with golden wings". You get the idea.

Doctor Z

Subject: RE: What song do you want at your funeral?
From: Nancy King
Date: 27 Feb 01 - 10:26 PM

Willa, I really like that epitaph. Must save it in a good place.

My son Dan Schatz has written several songs appropriate to such an occasion. My current favorite is "Leave Time," but I'm hoping he'll have time to write a whole lot more songs between now and the time I kick off.

I've been singing "Who Will Sing For Me" for years and always hoped people got the message, so I add another vote for that one. Of course, I assume my demise will be the occasion for a hell of a party, with lots of singing and laughing.

Cheers, Nancy

Subject: RE: What song do you want at your funeral?
From: Spud Murphy
Date: 27 Feb 01 - 11:13 PM

Don't know the name of this or even if it's got one, but I remember my Dad doing it on KFBK back in the thirties and somehow these two verses stuck with me:

Did ever you think as the hearse rolls by
That one of these days you are going to die?
They'll take you away in a big black hack,
Oh, they'll take you away and you won't come back, no you won't come back.

Oh, the men with the shovels will stand around
And they'll shovel you into the cold, cold ground.
They'll throw in the dirt and they'll throw in the rocks
And they won't give a damn if they break the box, they break the box.

Then there is at least two more verses. not very comforting ones, at that. Anybody recognize it?

Spud

Subject: RE: What song do you want at your funeral?
From: Wolfgang
Date: 28 Feb 01 - 05:06 AM

Adieu, Emile (Le moribond)

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: What song do you want at your funeral?
From: GUEST,JeZeBeL
Date: 28 Feb 01 - 02:42 PM

Definately "THE DEVIL WENT DOWN TO GEORGIA" and "jUST THE ONE" both by the Levellers, even better if i could have them playin live @ mine, that'd send me straight to heaven!! I dont know really, lotsa happy jumpy tunes, oh n that one by the poozies about the old woman on the hill that'll sell her soul to the devil if she can't last the nite with him,.............she beats him, of course......men, they've got ne stamina!!

JEZ!! xxx

Later darlins!!

Subject: RE: What song do you want at your funeral?
From: MiriamKilmer
Date: 28 Feb 01 - 05:13 PM

"Rainbow" and "Arnold" from _The Sacred Harp_.

"Swing Low, Sweet Chariot" - Make up your own verses.

"In Memoria Eterna" by what's-his-name (Mimi Stevens & Peter Sailer know).

Judy Cook may sing whatever she pleases.

And I definitely want to be there!

Subject: RE: What song do you want at your funeral?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 28 Feb 01 - 05:26 PM

I don't particularly care at this point if I ever have a funeral or not. Some do. Some don't.

If I was to pick a song, I guess Spaw picked the best one...Lay Down Your Weary Tune by Bob Dylan.

It would be a fine salute to the eternal that goes on regardless, no matter what we say or don't say about it.

- LH

Subject: RE: What song do you want at your funeral?
From: Marion
Date: 28 Feb 01 - 06:33 PM

I recently played "Neil Gow's Lament for the Death of his Second Wife" at the funeral of a good friend who was a devoted Scotch fiddler - think I wouldn't mind one of the classic fiddle laments myself.

As for songs, maybe "Bread of Life".

Marion

Subject: RE: What song do you want at your funeral?
From: GUEST,Paddy(1)
Date: 28 Feb 01 - 06:53 PM

For me there is but one, by Dory Previn, the last track on her Mythical Kings and Iguanas album called Going Home also.

It begins

I have flown to star stained heights on bent and battered wings
In search of mythical kings, mythical kings . . .

and finishes with a huge gospel chorus repeating the line

Going home is such a ride, going home is such a ride, isn't going home a lo-lonely ride . .

over and over.

As I am wheeled feet first down the church I will certainly cry . . .

Subject: RE: What song do you want at your funeral?
From: ray bucknell
Date: 28 Feb 01 - 08:59 PM

"Oh,lay me down in Forest Lawn in a silver casket, Put golden flowers over my head in a silver basket. Let the drum and bugle corps blow Taps while cannons roar, and sixteen liveried employees pass out souveniers from the funeral store. I want to go simply when I go. And they'll give me a simple funeral there, I know. With a casket lined in fleece, and fireworks spelling out "Rest in Peace" Oh, take me when I'm gone to Forest Lawn.

Oh lay me down in Forest Lawn, they understand there. And they have a heavenly choir and a military band there. Just put me in their care and I'll find my comfort there, With sixteen planes in a last salute, they'll drop a cross in a parachute. I want to go simply when I go. And they'll give me a simple funeral there, I know. With a hundred strolling strings, and topless dancers in golden wings, Oh, take me when I'm gone to Forest Lawn.

Oh, come to the church in the wildwood, Kindly leave a contribution in the pail. Be as simple and as trusting as a child would, and we'll sell you the church in the dale.

To find a simple resting place is my desire. To lay me down with a smiling face comes a little bit higher. My likeness cast in brass will stand in plastic grass, while weights and hidden springs will tip its hat to the mourners filing past. I want to go simply when I go. And they'll give me a simple funeral there, I know. I'll lie beneath the sand with piped-in tapes of Billy Graham. Oh, take me when I'm gone to Forest Lawn.

Rock of Ages cleft for me, for a slightly higher fee. Oh, take me when I'm gone to Forest Lawn."

Thanks, Doctor Z, for reminding me of that one. Paxton has written some clever songs but this has got to be one of his funniest. There's another one called "A Dying Business" that begins, "It was a helluva funeral" where they "gave away a Chevrolet to the person who cried the most" (and the funeral director was a shoo-in for the prize). "It was all done up deluxe and I made forty-thousand bucks" he brags at the end of the song. (Actually it was four thousand when I first heard the song in the 60s but that's been adjusted for inflation.)

Ray

Subject: RE: What song do you want at your funeral?
From: Rich(bodhránai gan ciall)
Date: 28 Feb 01 - 10:18 PM

Hard Times Come Again No More.

And if I go before Spaw, I want him to play a march on Cleigh O'Possum during the trip down to the gravesite.

Rich

Subject: RE: What song do you want at your funeral?
From: Rich(bodhránai gan ciall)
Date: 28 Feb 01 - 10:19 PM

Hard Times Come Again No More.

And if I go before Spaw, I want him to play a march on Cleigh O'Possum during the trip down to the gravesite.

Rich

Subject: RE: What song do you want at your funeral?
From: Jeremiah McCaw
Date: 01 Mar 01 - 11:21 AM

A wake, for sure. Music and celebration. Tears? Hell, yes; but I want more laughter than tears. Way more.

Three things for the sombre moments:
Phil Ochs' song "When I'm Gone" (Mr. Fielding do a pretty fine version, BTW)
The "Fiddler Jones" epitaph from Edgar Lee Masters' "Spoon River Anthology"
Ewan McColl's "The Joy of Living" (if by recording, then definitely the Bobby Watt rendition.

And if anybody sings "Please Don't Talk About Me When I'm Gone", I swear I'l come back and haunt the sumbitch!!!

When I'm Gone
Phil Ochs (1966)

Fiddler Jones Edgar Lee Masters (1917)

The Earth keeps some vibration going there in your heart and that is you
And if the people find you can fiddle, why, fiddle you must, for all your life
What do you see? A harvest of clover? Or a meadow to walk through to the river?
The wind's in the corn; you rub your hands for beaves hereafter ready for market?
Or else you hear the rustle of skirts, like the girls when dancing at Little Grove? To Cooney Potter, a pillar of dust or twirling leaves meant ruinous drought.
They looked to me like Red-Head Sammy stepping it off, to "Toor-a-Loor"
How could I till my forty acres, not to say of getting more,
With a medley of horns and bassoons and picolos stirred in my brain
By crows and robins and the creak of a windmill, only these?
And I never started to plough in my life, that someone did not stop in the road, and take me away to a dance or a picnic!
I ended up with forty acres
I ended up with a broken fiddle, and a broken laugh,
And a thousand memories
And not a single regret.

The Joy Of Living
Ewan McColl

Subject: RE: What song do you want at your funeral?
From: Jeremiah McCaw
Date: 01 Mar 01 - 11:26 AM

Hmmm...
Didn't quite lay out as intended. Where'd those repeats come from? Darn!

One omission to correct: in "Fiddler Jones" one line is incomplete and should read: "To Cooney Potter, a pillar of dust or twirling leaves meant ruinous drought."

There, I feel better now.

Subject: RE: What song do you want at your funeral?
From: GUEST
Date: 01 Mar 01 - 11:54 AM

I'LL FlY AWAY-some bright morning, when my work is over I'll fly away.....<> Weary Tune ....again<> come and go with me to that land-Blind Willie Johnson<> I'll do my last singin in this world somewhere- Rev. Gary Davis<> He Was a friend of mine<> Life is a carnival<> Did I mention it's going to be a full length concert with jugglers, elephants, and I am to be shot out of a cannon at the finale. (grin)

Subject: RE: What song do you want at your funeral?
From: JulieF
Date: 01 Mar 01 - 12:11 PM

I'm not particulary bothered about the funeral bit - anything would have to include some chorus songs as I've noted that singing at funerals seems to help and hymns are out.

Afterwards I would like to be buried in a green burial site where they put you in a wicker coffin and plant a tree. I would then have a piper play a lament to mark my going as you can only have pipe laments played outside.

Julie

Subject: RE: What song do you want at your funeral?
From: grumpy al
Date: 01 Mar 01 - 04:21 PM

don't want a song at my funeral. I wan't my ex to dance on my grave..............I'm being buried at sea.

Subject: RE: What song do you want at your funeral?
From: Peter Kasin
Date: 01 Mar 01 - 11:14 PM

"Somewhere," from West Side Story. Ed Miller to sing "A Man's A Man For A' That" accompanied by Alasdair Fraser on fiddle. Alasdair to solo on the Gaelic air "A Nochd Gur Faoin Mo Chadal Dhomh." Someone or ones to sing favorite Gilbert and Sullivan songs: "Model Of A Modern Major-General" from The Pirates of Penzance, "If You Give Me Your Attention," from Princess Ida, "The Moon And I," from The Mikado, "Never Mind The Why And Wherefore" from HMS Pinafore. A small jazz group to play a Charlie Parker composition. A trio of Irish musicians to play a set of reels.

-chanteyranger

Subject: RE: What song do you want at your funeral?
From: GUEST
Date: 01 Mar 01 - 11:22 PM

Whatever makes my wife and kids feel better, I'll be dead.

Subject: RE: What song do you want at your funeral?
From: Ely
Date: 02 Mar 01 - 12:06 AM

Mom made me promise I'd play Howie Mitchell's "Dipper of Stars".

I haven't thought much about my own funeral. I don't want everyone to get depressed--I think I'll have them sing "I'll Fly Away" and then order a night of square dancing.

Subject: RE: What song do you want at your funeral?
From: *#1 PEASANT*
Date: 02 Mar 01 - 01:26 PM

For a very complete guide to Irish Wake music including customs etc.... Get a copy of our Irish wake book. Songs, lyrics, music all you need for a complete Irish wake including laws governing home burial and shipping bodies to the isle of Ireland republic or provence. Doesnt matter what musicians you have got if they can read music you will have a great wake. Recipes,games everything... go here http://www.geocities.com/artcars/bookie4a.html or order via http://www.amazon.com searh under Bladey Enjoy and be prepared as you dont know you will be having one till you are having one!

Conrad

Subject: RE: What song do you want at your funeral?
From: Smok
Date: 02 Mar 01 - 09:14 PM

Being in the 'biz' I have made note of a lot of the suggestions. I starte my career in death liking 'Amazing Grace' but now, if I hear it one more time, either on the pipes over vocal I will join the recently departed. But, one of the 'best' service I work was at a rural cemetery, on a piney hill, where one of the friends of the dead man started to sing 'Amazing Grace' unannounced. We, the paid mourners, were stunned! It was one of those monent that I will never forget. The rest of gathering slowly joined in this wonderful, and truly heart felt, outpouring. It is great when the family can choose non-traditional music, poetry or sites for the closing of a life/

Subject: RE: What song do you want at your funeral?
From: Lox
Date: 03 Mar 01 - 12:03 AM

Mozarts requiem, (up until and including "lacrimosa").

At the very least, it would be a chance for my philistine friends to be forced into listening to something of value for once in their lives in intelligent and respectful silence.

lox

Subject: RE: What song do you want at your funeral?
From: Bullytanana
Date: 03 Mar 01 - 12:43 AM

I asked Alison Kelley (of the JOHNSON GIRLS)two years ago if she would sing 'WHAT`S THE LIFE OF A MAN`. If you have nothing else to do that day,come along and join the chorus.

Subject: Lyr Add: SLEEP ON BELOVED (Sankey)
From: Gervase
Date: 30 Mar 01 - 07:01 AM

I love the idea of Mozart's Requiem. When I got married a friend sang his Laudate dominum, which is just heart-wrenchingly lovely, so I'd like that again.
And, even though I'm not remotely religious (lapsed left-footer who gave it all up for Lent and never looked back), I love the Sankey hymns, so it would have to be SLEEP ON BELOVED, with all the harmonies...

Sleep on beloved, sleep and take thy rest.
Lay down thy head upon thy Saviour's breast.
We love thee well but Jesus loves thee best;
Goodnight, goodnight, goodnight.

Until our shadows from this earth are cast,
Until He gathers in His sheaves at last,
Until the twilight gloom is overpassed;
Goodnight, goodnight, goodnight.

Until made beautiful by love divine,
Thou in the likeness of thy Lord shall shine,
And He will bring that golden crown of thine;
Goodnight, goodnight, goodnight.

Until we meet again before the throne,
Clothed in the spotless robes he gives his own,
Until we know as we have known;
Goodnight goodnight goodnight.