What song do you want at your funeral?

Subject: RE: What song do you want at your funeral?
From: GUEST,Fat elk
Date: 16 Sep 06 - 07:59 PM

I want an old Easter hymn called 'Up from the grave he arose' at mine.

Failing, 'Stars in my Crown' by Waterson:Carthy

Subject: RE: What song do you want at your funeral?
From: Rapparee
Date: 16 Sep 06 - 12:11 PM

I've posted some before, but today I'm thinking the "Time, Gentlemen, Time" might be good.

Subject: RE: What song do you want at your funeral?
From: foggers
Date: 16 Sep 06 - 11:55 AM

Haven't decided on mine yet, but we followed the wishes of my dear and wicked old dad 17 years ago, and as he slid into the incinerator, the congregation was treated to "Smoke gets in your Eyes".... that is going to be a tough one to follow...

Subject: RE: What song do you want at your funeral?
From: GUEST,Jim McAdams
Date: 16 Sep 06 - 10:53 AM

"A man's a man" by Rabbie Burns and on my headstone "a man of independent mind, he looks and laughs at a' that"

Subject: RE: What song do you want at your funeral?
From: GUEST,Dr Price
Date: 16 Sep 06 - 06:12 AM

Our good friend Murray came from Bracknell in leafy Berkshire, but he loved South Wales. He died of lung cancer, and his will requested that we sing the miners' "gutter choir" union marching song When The Coal Comes From The Rhondda at his funeral. We journeyed across the Severn Bridge, and sang with gusto to our dear pal in the coffin:

You men of Tonypandy who dig the veins of coal
(With my little pick and shovel, I'll be there!)
The boss may own the colliery, but he'll never own your soul
(With my little pick and shovel, I'll be there!)

When the coal comes from the Rhondda,
When the coal comes from the Rhondda,
With my shovel and my pick and my little lamp and wick,
When the coal comes from the Rhondda, I'll be there!

The funny thing was that Murray was an arch-Conservative, but he really liked that song!

I take my name from Dr William Price, genius, visionary and self-styled Druid who lived in Caerffili and Llantrisant in the 19th century. Given that Dr Price opened the way for cremation, how about Fire by The Crazy World Of Arthur Brown?

Subject: RE: What song do you want at your funeral?
From: JamesHenry
Date: 16 Sep 06 - 04:07 AM

"See You Later Alligator" Bill Haley

Subject: RE: What song do you want at your funeral?
From: GUEST,Sandy Andina
Date: 16 Sep 06 - 03:04 AM

"There She Goes"

Subject: RE: What song do you want at your funeral?
From: ifor
Date: 16 Sep 06 - 12:03 AM

the great welsh hymn
calon lan
ifor

Subject: RE: What song do you want at your funeral?
From: GUEST
Date: 15 Sep 06 - 11:35 PM

Something someone writes about 30 years from now.

Subject: RE: What song do you want at your funeral?
From: GUEST,oldhippie
Date: 15 Sep 06 - 09:55 PM

The Trumpet Vine - Kate Wolf

Subject: RE: What song do you want at your funeral?
From: katlaughing
Date: 15 Sep 06 - 09:21 PM

Murray, great video!

Subject: RE: What song do you want at your funeral?
From: Dartford Warbler
Date: 15 Sep 06 - 08:45 PM

Richard Thompson's "Meet On The Ledge". Though not sure what recorded version I would have?

Subject: RE: What song do you want at your funeral?
From: GUEST,thurg
Date: 15 Sep 06 - 08:38 PM

I'd have them bury me dacent and raise a loud cry. I don't want St. James Infirmary sung, but I'd like the instructions followed to a T, including, On my hearse a jazz band playing ("Please Don't Talk About Me When I'm Gone" would be an appropriate selection), To raise a little hell as we roll along. And a chorus girl to sing me one last song ("Let's Go Get Stoned" - Amboy Dukes version, please). And don't forget the straight-laced shoes and box-back coat. Thank you.

Subject: RE: What song do you want at your funeral?
From: Murray MacLeod
Date: 15 Sep 06 - 07:02 PM

mmmm screwed that up, let's hope the cremation goes off without any hitches

This amazing instrumental

Subject: RE: What song do you want at your funeral?
From: Murray MacLeod
Date: 15 Sep 06 - 07:00 PM

When the coffin starts its slow glide into the incinerator,http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZqRnaSRyELA This amazing instrumental is what I want to hear played.

Unfortunately Roy Buchanan won't be able to do a command performance, but I do have the single, which I bought in 1972.

Subject: RE: What song do you want at your funeral?
From: Young Buchan
Date: 05 Apr 05 - 06:28 AM

I'm tempted to say A Million Green Bottles Hanging on the Wall, but given the way that most folksingers in England seem to slow ballads down these days, the whole of Lord Bateman would probably have much the same effect!

Subject: RE: What song do you want at your funeral?
From: Lancashire Lad
Date: 05 Apr 05 - 04:56 AM

Who Knows Where the time goes for a few tears
followed by Drink Old England dry.....for a long and roudy wake

LL

Subject: RE: What song do you want at your funeral?
From: GUEST,Fiss
Date: 05 Apr 05 - 04:30 AM

Chris B, born again Scouser, is "I Never Liked Any Of You, You Sanctimonious Bastards" an existing song? I couldn't find it in the Mudcat archives, but it sounds like it might have been suitable for the funeral of a friend of mine.

Subject: RE: What song do you want at your funeral?
From: GUEST,bfdk
Date: 04 Apr 05 - 06:00 PM

I'd go for

Runrig's "The Old Boys"

followed by

Nick Keir's "Next Time Round" ;-))

Subject: RE: What song do you want at your funeral?
From: Peace
Date: 04 Apr 05 - 05:00 PM

I am sorry to learn of this, Les. Accept my condolences, please.

Subject: RE: What song do you want at your funeral?
From: Rasener
Date: 04 Apr 05 - 04:58 PM

Just got back from my best friends funeral in Redditch UK today.

Tom Lewis was at his bedside when he died and sang a song to him.

When he got back to Canada, he recorded it and sent it on CD to his wife. It was played at the funeral.

I would like to personally thank Tom for unselfishly looking after his wife and daughter, whilst touring around the Midlands. I won't embarrass you Tom :-)

Les Worrall

Subject: RE: What song do you want at your funeral?
From: Dipsodeb
Date: 04 Apr 05 - 04:09 AM

We were discussing this the other day strangely enough and I want to be carried in to Blackbird (Beatles) I want My daughter to sing I will always love you (Whitney) she sings it beautifully and always makes me cry.. how she would get through that I don't know. Finally I want to end with I Love to Boogie (Bolan) Then on to a great party with a provided list of all my other favorites.....by which time it will be just as well i'm not there LOL
~Debs~

Subject: RE: What song do you want at your funeral?
From: Peace
Date: 03 Apr 05 - 11:08 PM

"Summer of '69" by Bryan Adams. Cranked loud--reverb, lotsa bass and lotsa treble.

Subject: RE: What song do you want at your funeral?
From: wysiwyg
Date: 03 Apr 05 - 10:13 PM

Now We Take This Feeble Body- Arr. R. Nathaniel Dett. It's a spiritual on my Opera Ebony CD. The CD track could just be played.

~S~

Subject: RE: What song do you want at your funeral?
From: Stephen L. Rich
Date: 03 Apr 05 - 09:59 PM

"Yes! We Have No Bananas" -- just for the sake of doing one last weird thing.

Stephen Lee

Subject: RE: What song do you want at your funeral?
From: Rasener
Date: 03 Apr 05 - 04:51 PM

Lanfranc
Kathleen ferrier and what is life, must be one of the saddist songs ever sung, especially at a funeral. No wonder there wasn't a dry eye.

In all seriousness it will figure at my funeral, together with Everytime we say goodbye by Ella Fitzgerald. Maybe it could be finished off with Cry me a river :-)

Subject: RE: What song do you want at your funeral?
From: mandoleer
Date: 03 Apr 05 - 04:48 PM

When I organised my mother's funeral, I had to disregard one of her wishes (to be transported in a cardboard box in a Transit van - too hard to get sorted in a couple of days in what for us was deep snow!), but I did make sure that there was no priest at the cremation ceremony. This meant I had to write and do the oration, and I chose music from one of her favourite bands for a time of reflection after I had spoken. Most of those present would have been horrified if they'd known what the band was - http://www.metalstorm.ee/bands/view_albums.php?band_id=anathema
Anathema are now more Goth, but then they were Death Metal (appropriate?). The track I used, 'Dreaming: The Romance' is one of the most beautiful bits of music I've heard. Wouldn't mind it myself, or Arvo Part (with an umlaut on the Part)'s Cantus in Memoriam Benjamin Britten. Can't stand BB, but love the Cantus. And then a short session, and on to the pub for a longer one.

Subject: RE: What song do you want at your funeral?
From: GUEST,Siobhan
Date: 03 Apr 05 - 03:46 PM

My choice would be the music from the film 'True Confessions'. Especially the scene near the end where the two main characters played by Robert De Niro and Robert Duvall who are brothers meet to make peace with each other. The music was an instrumental slow air version of 'Carrickfergus' which I thought was very poignant..It was playing as one was telling the other he was dying. Unfortunately its about the only part of the film that was any good.

Subject: RE: What song do you want at your funeral?
From: gnu
Date: 26 Mar 05 - 02:49 PM

Hehehehe. Ohhhh, Laura. Thanks for the laugh. Excellent!!!

Subject: RE: What song do you want at your funeral?
From: GUEST,*Laura*
Date: 26 Mar 05 - 01:46 PM

I want Monty Python's 'Always look on the bright side'
and - I think this would be brilliant - 'Another one Bites the Dust'.
But my mum has said if I die before her she refuses to play 'Another one bites the dust' at my funeral. :-(

xLx

Subject: RE: What song do you want at your funeral?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 25 Mar 05 - 01:58 PM

the joy of living!

surely the whole bleeding point is that your dead.

Subject: RE: What song do you want at your funeral?
From: PoohBear
Date: 25 Mar 05 - 01:12 PM

NO Funeral - just one hell of a wake, please, lubricated with lots of Guinness. And scatter my ashes in the Pacific Ocean off the centeral Oregon coast. Every upbeat folk song you can think of but please be sure to include the following:
Calypso by John Dever
Nautical Wheeler by Jimmy Buffett
Flower of Scotland by The Corries
Finnegan's Wake
PB

Subject: RE: What song do you want at your funeral?
From: wysiwyg
Date: 25 Mar 05 - 11:42 AM

GONNA SIT DOWN ON THE BANK OF THE RIVER (above) has been entered for indexing in the AFRICAN-AMERICAN SPIRITUALS PERMATHREAD as a possible spiritual.

If lyrics of any spirituals are added to this thread, please take a moment to post that TITLE and this thread's ID number (or full URL) in the AFRICAN-AMERICAN SPIRITUALS PERMATHREAD, so it can be included when the index is updated.

Thanks!

~S~

Subject: RE: What song do you want at your funeral?
From: Rustic Rebel
Date: 16 Mar 05 - 12:44 PM

I can't commit to a song yet since I have a hundred year life plan ahead of me. Might be a good song yet to come!
I do want to be cremated though and "Please don't bury me", John Prine, is at the top of my list.

Subject: RE: What song do you want at your funeral?
From: PoppaGator
Date: 16 Mar 05 - 12:27 PM

I'd like the full New Orleans Jazz Funeral treatment, including:

"Just A Closer Walk"

"Glory Glory Hallelulia/When I Lay My Burden Down" (which uses the same tune as "Will The Circle Be Unbroken")

and more, certainly including this classic, which is credited to Louis Armstrong on the internet lyrics page where I found it, but which is really (I think) traditional:


Didn't he ramble.... he rambled
Rambled all around.... in and out of town
Didn't he ramble....didn't he ramble
He rambled till the butcher cut him down

His feet was in the market place..his head was in the street
Lady pass him by, said..look at the market meat
He grabbed her pocket book..and said I wish you well
She pulled out a forty-five..said I'm head of personnel

Didn't he ramble...I said he rambled
Rambled all around...in and out of town
Didn't he ramble...oh didn't he ramble
He rambled till the butcher shot him down

(instrumental break)

He slipped into the cat house..made love to the stable
Madam caught him cold..said I'll pay you when I be able
Six months had passed ..and she stood all she could stand
She said buddy when I'm through with you
Ole groundhog gonna be shakin yo' hand

And didn't he ramble...he rambled
Rambled all around...in and out of town
Oh didn't he ramble......he rambled
You know he rambled...till the butcher...cut him down

I said he rambled..lord...'till the butcher shot him down

(The above two verses are new to me ~ in my experience, at funersla whereI've heard it, only the chorus is sung; the verse are done instrumentally-only.)

Subject: RE: What song do you want at your funeral?
From: DannyC
Date: 16 Mar 05 - 12:06 PM

"The Joy of Living" - McColl

Farewell Ye Northern hills...

Subject: RE: What song do you want at your funeral?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 16 Mar 05 - 11:13 AM

Buffy Sainte-Marie's "Starwalker" would be fine. I love that song.

Subject: RE: What song do you want at your funeral?
From: just john
Date: 16 Mar 05 - 10:57 AM

(By the way, I sincerely think "Smoke Gets In Your Eyes" packs quite a wallop when done right.)

Subject: RE: What song do you want at your funeral?
From: just john
Date: 16 Mar 05 - 10:53 AM

...

I want to go simply when I go
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, I'll find my comfort there,
With sixteen planes and a last salute, dropping a cross in a parachute.

I want to go simply when I go.
They'll give me a simple funeral there I know,
With a hundred strolling strings
And topless dancers with golden wings.
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


...<\i> -- Tom Paxton

Subject: RE: What song do you want at your funeral?
From: GUEST,Smoke gets in your eyes
Date: 16 Mar 05 - 05:18 AM

Until March 1st I had a shop next to a funeral direcotrs and daily went in for a chat. They told me they had a job keeping a straight face when "smoke gets in your eyes" was requested.

Subject: RE: What song do you want at your funeral?
From: 14fret
Date: 16 Mar 05 - 04:17 AM

Anything but bloody folk music. Probably Nilsson's 'Let the good times roll' and 'Driving blind' by Little Feat.

Subject: RE: What song do you want at your funeral?
From: GUEST,Jim
Date: 15 Mar 05 - 12:09 PM

If you hear somebody knockin' on your door
If you see something crawlin' across the floor
Baby, it'll be me, and I'll be lookin' for you

Subject: RE: What song do you want at your funeral?
From: GUEST,GUEST,Chris B (Born Again Scouser)
Date: 15 Mar 05 - 08:40 AM

'I Never Liked Any Of You, You Sanctimonious Bastards'.

Subject: RE: What song do you want at your funeral?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 15 Mar 05 - 07:56 AM

I don't want to have a funeral. just bagged and burned. the time to say nice things to and about people is when they're alive.

I get bored at weddings too.

The idea of all these buggers who wouldn't as much as buy you a drink when you were alive, all sitting there in the crem, having a hootenanny.....no doubt with a pie and chips and a raffle in the middle for free entry to next weeks funeral.

then the vicar starts up, We are her today to remember and pay homage to the life of ....shit I've forgotten the words...

Well ....I suppose at least you wouldn't be there.

Big Al Whittle

Subject: RE: What song do you want at your funeral?
From: GUEST,Raggytash
Date: 15 Mar 05 - 05:20 AM

Haven't had the time to read all the thread, but when the rollers start at the crematorium I want Gracie Field singing .......


.......... Wish me luck as you wave me goodbye
          Cheerio here I go on my way

Subject: RE: What song do you want at your funeral?
From: Pauline L
Date: 15 Mar 05 - 01:29 AM

I don't care what songs people sing at my funeral, or whether they sing any songs then.

Give me the roses while I live trying to cheer me on
Useless are flowers that you give after the soul is gone

Subject: RE: What song do you want at your funeral?
From: Dave'sWife
Date: 14 Mar 05 - 08:53 PM

Omigod I made my first Clickie!

....And it's to an appropriately lengthy discussion of the thousands of poosible interpretations of one songs lyrics!


Do I get a prize?

Subject: RE: What song do you want at your funeral?
From: Dave'sWife
Date: 14 Mar 05 - 08:48 PM

Ok..I've gone and gotten the Lyrics to my two current faves:


FOR A DANCER by Jackson Browne

Keep a fire burning in your eye
Pay attention to the open sky
You never know what will be coming down
I don't remember losing track of you
You were always dancing in and out of view
I must have thought you'd always be around
Always keeping things real by playing the clown
Now you're nowhere to be found

I don't know what happens when people die
Can't seem to grasp it as hard as I try
It's like a song I can hear playing right in my ear
That I can't sing
I can't help listening
And I can't help feeling stupid standing 'round
Crying as they ease you down
'Cause I know that you'd rather we were dancing
Dancing our sorrow away
(Right on dancing)
No matter what fate chooses to play
(There's nothing you can do about it anyway)

Just do the steps that you've been shown
By everyone you've ever known
Until the dance becomes your very own
No matter how close to yours
Another's steps have grown
In the end there is one dance you'll do alone

Keep a fire for the human race
Let your prayers go drifting into space
You never know what will be coming down
Perhaps a better world is drawing near
And just as easily it could all disappear
Along with whatever meaning you might have found
Don't let the uncertainty turn you around
(The world keeps turning around and around)
Go on and make a joyful sound

Into a dancer you have grown
From a seed somebody else has thrown
Go on ahead and throw some seeds of your own
And somewhere between the time you arrive
And the time you go
May lie a reason you were alive
But you'll never know

and the other one I want:
"Ripple"

Words by Robert Hunter; music by Jerry Garcia.
("Ripple" composed and written by Jerry Garcia and Robert Hunter. Reproduced by arrangement with Ice Nine Publishing Co., Inc. (ASCAP))
If my words did glow with the gold of sunshine
And my tunes were played on the harp unstrung
Would you hear my voice come through the music
Would you hold it near as it were your own?

It's a hand-me-down, the thoughts are broken
Perhaps they're better left unsung
I don't know, don't really care
Let there be songs to fill the air

(Chorus)

Ripple in still water
When there is no pebble tossed
Nor wind to blow

Reach out your hand if your cup be empty
If your cup is full may it be again
Let it be known there is a fountain
That was not made by the hands of men

There is a road, no simple highway
Between the dawn and the dark of night
And if you go no one may follow
That path is for your steps alone

(Chorus)

You who choose to lead must follow
But if you fall you fall alone
If you should stand then who's to guide you?
If I knew the way I would take you home



Here's a link to some 40 pages of serious discusiion of the Lyrics to 'Ripple'

The Annotated "Ripple"

Subject: RE: What song do you want at your funeral?
From: Andy Jackson
Date: 14 Mar 05 - 08:35 PM

Any song I can join in with will do for me!!

Subject: RE: What song do you want at your funeral?
From: Chris Green
Date: 14 Mar 05 - 08:11 PM

I was once at a cremation where "Colours of Day" was sung as the coffin went into the furnace. The congregation singing "So light up the fire and let the flame burn" struck me as apposite, to say the least!

On reflection, I think it would probably be "The Unquiet Grave" - without a doubt the best song about letting go of people who've died that I've ever heard.