What song do you want at your funeral?

Subject: RE: What song do you want at your funeral?
From: Liam's Brother
Date: 30 Mar 01 - 08:02 AM

"Goodbye Muirsheen Durkin, I'm sick and tired a workin'..."

Subject: RE: What song do you want at your funeral?
From: Steve Latimer
Date: 30 Mar 01 - 08:57 AM

I too would want Dylan's Restless Farewell. I would like my sister to sing it.

Subject: RE: What song do you want at your funeral?
From: Jenny the T
Date: 30 Mar 01 - 09:00 AM

About a year and a half ago, a friend and fellow musician, dearly loved within the Irish music community round here (and by the surrounding community as well), was brutally murdered in her own bed. It was a terrible time, the worst kind of shock imaginable.

Her memorial service, however, was a memory that'll never fade. Hundreds came to say farewell. All her musician friends sat up front behind the pastor. In the center was a chair, empty save for her instrument and a framed photo.

Periodically throughout the service we played one or another set of tunes. When all was over, we played the mourners out the door. The music was powerful, especially considering that we were all weeping copiously.

Later we had her wake, a kitchen session with just the musicians and some of the family. The music poured forth till the wee hours.

That's how I'd like it for myself--let my friends say goodbye with the tunes (and the company) I loved in life. I'll listen hard for them.

Jenny

Subject: RE: What song do you want at your funeral?
From: mousethief
Date: 30 Mar 01 - 11:45 AM

"By God, We Thought He'd NEVER Die!"

I'll write it when I'm 105.

Alex

Subject: RE: What song do you want at your funeral?
From: kytrad (Jean Ritchie)
Date: 30 Mar 01 - 02:41 PM

One day a newspaper interviewer told me that my obit was already on file...what a shock. I decided that I'd better take a hand in what my epitaph would be. I sang it to close a program (it has a tune); folks didn't like the title, "Epitaph," so I changed it to, "Songs of Life." It's personal, but you can have it too, if you like:

Harp on the willow tree, now it is hung
One man, one faith, one God, to them I've clung;
Sweet were the songs of life- now they are sung,
Harp on the willow tree, now it is hung

Dear little son of mine- child on your knee,
Sing him your songs of life- let him fly free!
Dear little son of mine- child on your knee,
Sing them for you, for him- sing them for me. Jean

Subject: RE: What song do you want at your funeral?
From: GUEST,nancy
Date: 30 Mar 01 - 06:47 PM

Funerals...gah. If I did have one I'd want people to cry.... That's what funerals are for, after all...closure, etc.

First Mendelssohn's Song w/o Words and Recuerdos de la Alhambra, played by J. Bream, then Vivaldi's Stabat Mater. OK...everybody in, seated and hankies out. I'd have somebody with a foine Irish accent read that great O'Driscoll poem that end's up And never was piping so sad, and never was piping so gay,

Then Bok would sing John o' Dreams (sleep is a river, goes on forever). Then a great poem by MacNeice

The sunlight on the garden, hardens and grows cold
We cannot cage the minute within its net of gold,
When all is told
We cannot beg for pardon

Our freedom as free lances, Advances toward its end;
The earth compels, upon it Sonnets and birds descend;
And soon, my friend,
We shall have no time for dances

The sky was good for flying Defying the church bells
And every evil iron Siren and what it tells;
The earth compels
We are dying, Egypt, dying

And not expecting pardon hardened in heart anew,
But glad to have sat under Thunder and rain with you.
And grateful too
For sunlight on the garden.

Now everybody sings Give Yourself to Love (words printed in the program! No slackers!)

Then the Salutation to the Dawn, from the Sanskrit

Look to this day--for it is life
The very life of life
Yesterday is but a dream
And tomorrow is only a vision
But today well spent makes every Yesterday
A dream of happiness
And every tomorrow a vision of hope.

Then EmmyLou sings Poor Wayfarin' Stranger.... and everybody leaves...hopefully all cried out and ready to

PARTY!

Subject: RE: What song do you want at your funeral?
From: Devilmaster
Date: 31 Mar 01 - 03:13 AM

Personally, it will sooner or later be in my will, but I have already told everyone I know that I want to have a New Orleans Jazz Funeral. Where a dixieland band will do the slow dirge to my gravesite, and when that first bit of dirt is thrown on top,(and the belief that my spirit have travelled on to a better place...) they will pick up the tempo and do the same song but as a celebratory, fast jazz song.

A good example of this is 'Didn't He Ramble' a version which shows both is done by Al Hirt and Pete Fountain. But I have also heard a version of Amazing Grace done like that.

You guys are all invited to be second liners at my funeral. (second liners are dancers that are behind the band)

Subject: RE: What song do you want at your funeral?
From: Midchuck
Date: 31 Mar 01 - 07:15 AM

"Sam Hall!"

"Now in heaven do I dwell, do I dwell;
Now in heaven do I dwell, do I dwell.
And the truth it is to tell
That it is a bloody sell.
All the whores are down in Hell
God Damn their eyes!

Peter

Subject: RE: What song do you want at your funeral?
From: Bat Goddess
Date: 31 Mar 01 - 10:50 AM

My themesong, "Aunt Clara" and a bunch o joyful stuff everyone can join in on.

Bat Goddess

Subject: RE: What song do you want at your funeral?
From: Bat Goddess
Date: 31 Mar 01 - 10:53 AM

Oh, and "Changes" by Phil Ochs.

Bat Goddess who is brain dead from waiting around O'Hare

Subject: RE: What song do you want at your funeral?
From: kendall
Date: 31 Mar 01 - 10:27 PM

Turning toward the morning. IF my best friend, Gordon Bok will sing it.(Assuming we dont both go down in the same storm.

Subject: RE: What song do you want at your funeral?
From: GUEST,1st Times Guest
Date: 01 Apr 01 - 07:53 PM

Hafta be St.James Infirmary Blues Well, when I die please bury me In my high-topped Stetson hat. Put a 20 dollar gold piece on my watch chain, So god'll know that I died standin' pat.

Subject: RE: What song do you want at your funeral?
From: Mr Red
Date: 02 Apr 01 - 08:34 AM

Horses Brawl in the key of GG
well actually G to G minor (as in Blozabella's book)
If you hear the bodhran playing, I've obviously gone downstairs, to meet my redman!

Subject: RE: What song do you want at your funeral?
From: alanww
Date: 18 Dec 01 - 06:24 AM

I sang this at my 30 year old step-daughter's funeral, just about managing to do so without breaking down ...

SONG FOR VALERIE

Time passes over more peacefully each day,
Recalling good times to drive sorrows away.

Our Valerie's arising so high in the sky,
With her flaming red hair and her sparkling eye.

She was not too rich and she was not too poor,
But she spread happiness to us and to thousands or more.

Alan

Subject: RE: What song do you want at your funeral?
From: The_one_and_only_Dai
Date: 18 Dec 01 - 06:28 AM

spem in alium, believe it or not. that'll make the b*st!rds cry about something...

Subject: RE: What song do you want at your funeral?
From: *#1 PEASANT*
Date: 18 Dec 01 - 07:46 AM

For the most complete set of Irish Funeral standards at least as complete as I have ever found check out my book on the Irish Wake. It is available from clickit right here just search for Bladey in the book section. Also available from me direct but I dont take credit cards and they do... to order from me clickit here Notation too. Conrad

Subject: RE: What song do you want at your funeral?
From: GUEST
Date: 18 Dec 01 - 08:15 AM

'Chasing the Hearse' a little arent you there, fella?

Subject: RE: What song do you want at your funeral?
From: Mike Byers
Date: 18 Dec 01 - 08:23 AM

If I had a choice (but I expect I won't) I'd go for "The Sweeps" on whistle and guitar while my friends, glasses of Black Bush in hand, dump my ashes into McShane Branch creek and are later all arrested by the Indiana Department of Enviromental Management.

Subject: RE: What song do you want at your funeral?
From: Fortunato
Date: 18 Dec 01 - 09:12 AM

I walked 47 miles of barbed wire, I use a cobra snake for a necktie
I got a brand new house on the roadside, made outta
rattlesnake hide
I got a brand new chimney made up top, made out of a human skull
Now come on, take a little walk with me, Arlene and tell me:
who do you love?
who do you love?
Who do you love?
Who do you love?

I rode around the town'n use a rattlesnake whip, take it easy Arlene don't give me no lip
Who do you love?
Who do you love?
Who do you love?
Who do you love?

The night was dark and the sky was blue, down the alley a ice wagon flew
Hit a bump and somebody screamed, you should'a heard just what I seen
Who do you love?
Who do you love?
Who do you love?
Who do you love?

Arlene took me by my hand, she said, "Ooo-eee Chance, I understand"
Who do you love?
Who do you love?
Who do you love?
Who do you love?

I've got a tombstone hand and a graveyard mind, I'm just (MY AGE) and I don't mind dyin'
Who do you love?
Who do you love?
Who do you love?
Who do you love?
Bo Diddley 1956

Subject: RE: What song do you want at your funeral?
From: Wilfried Schaum
Date: 18 Dec 01 - 10:07 AM

The service shall be when i'm cremated. The urn will be put into a small ammo box for pistol rounds DM 19.
When the box will be carried by 2 captains out of the chapel, the drums will beat the death roll.
While marching to the grave, the fifes will play Jesus, meine Zuversicht (Jesus Christ, my trust and hope), interrupted by the drums beating the band call.
After the sermon, when the urn is lowered into the ground, the fifes will play Ich hatt' einen Kameraden (The Good Companion at Arms), which is inevitable with a German burial in uniform.
When every participant has thrown his three shovels of earth (or make it better an entrenchment tool) into the grave, the fifes and drums will go to Nun danket alle Gott (Now thank and praise the Lord), my absolutely most favourite hymn.
When marching to the next inn to celebrate, the fifes and drums shall play Heia Safari to remember my fine days in Africa and the Blue Dragoons, our platoon song when I was in boot camp.
A lawyer will see that this order will be respected, heirs objecting will be disinherited (bad luck).

Subject: RE: What song do you want at your funeral?
From: Steve in Idaho
Date: 18 Dec 01 - 11:18 AM

The reality for me, in spite of my prior post, will be the sound of a Marine rifle squad firing over my bones/ash/whatever, and the sound of a Marine Bugler playing Taps.

Steve

Subject: RE: What song do you want at your funeral?
From: X
Date: 18 Dec 01 - 12:08 PM

"Ding Dong The Witch Is Died"

Subject: RE: What song do you want at your funeral?
From: GUEST,Annegi
Date: 18 Dec 01 - 02:49 PM

Bright Blue Rose - Jimmy McCarthey Neil Gunn's Lament for his first wife Be still my soul Song of the Hebrew Boatmen from the Pearl Fishers

Then everyone can have a 'good greet' as they say in Scotland. My brother was once asked to sing at a cremation and the song requested was 'Blowing in the wind'!!!!

Subject: RE: What song do you want at your funeral?
From: gnu
Date: 18 Dec 01 - 03:28 PM

"Look, He's Not Dead !"

Subject: RE: What song do you want at your funeral?
From: X
Date: 18 Dec 01 - 03:57 PM

And your little dog too!

Subject: RE: What song do you want at your funeral?
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 18 Dec 01 - 05:03 PM

For those in peril on the sea
Failte.....Jock

Subject: RE: What song do you want at your funeral?
From: GUEST,SharonA on vacation, checkin' in
Date: 18 Dec 01 - 05:06 PM

How about "At My Funeral" by the Crash Test Dummies?

Subject: RE: What song do you want at your funeral?
From: wysiwyg
Date: 18 Dec 01 - 05:09 PM

Alanww, was this recent?????

~Susan

Subject: RE: What song do you want at your funeral?
From: Celtic Soul
Date: 18 Dec 01 - 05:16 PM

I am torn between something Scottish or Irish in a minor key (my own personal favorite music is all minor key and Celtic), or Steel drums with a fast beat, like the soundtrack to "Beetle Juice".

Why the latter? Because I know the former will be a major downer, and I'd rather those I leave behind have something happy to send me off with. :D

Subject: RE: What song do you want at your funeral?
From: Celtic Soul
Date: 18 Dec 01 - 05:16 PM

I am torn between something Scottish or Irish in a minor key (my own personal favorite music is all minor key and Celtic), or Steel drums with a fast beat, like the soundtrack to "Beetle Juice".

Why the latter? Because I know the former will be a major downer, and I'd rather those I leave behind have something happy to send me off with. :D

Subject: RE: What song do you want at your funeral?
From: Philibuster
Date: 18 Dec 01 - 05:48 PM

Someone to play taps on a kazoo, while my children empty the garbage bag of my freeze dried remains on the garden...or into some punch. =P

Subject: RE: What song do you want at your funeral?
From: Bennet Zurofsky
Date: 18 Dec 01 - 05:50 PM

For my own, I don't know.

For others, I have often been asked to sing "May the Work That I Have Done Speak for Me," which is easy to adapt to the facts of the deceased's life and which the entire congregation easily learns and sings along.

May the work that I have done speak for me (2x) If I fall down on this road, Someone else will grab the load May the work that I have done speak for me

May the songs that I have sung . . .

May the battles I have fought . . .

etc.

Subject: RE: What song do you want at your funeral?
From: GUEST,Desdemona
Date: 18 Dec 01 - 06:07 PM

WOW---this thread is getting long; I guess we're all making careful plans ;-) !

I want mostly Elizabethan lute music--notably John Dowland's "Tarleton's Resurrection" and sundry Anthony Holborne pieces--but would also like the Beatles' "Blackbird" and "Here Comes the Sun".

Subject: RE: What song do you want at your funeral?
From: mzkitty
Date: 18 Dec 01 - 06:29 PM

"Lay Down Your Weary Tune" by Bob Dylan. and ""And We Danced" by the Hooters. and more when I think of them...

Subject: RE: What song do you want at your funeral?
From: GUEST,Desdemona
Date: 18 Dec 01 - 06:32 PM

Oh, yeah---and "That's What I Like(d) About You" by the Romantics, so everyone can dance!

Subject: RE: What song do you want at your funeral?
From: GUEST,jim b
Date: 18 Dec 01 - 07:35 PM

I am hoping it will not be written for some time

Subject: RE: What song do you want at your funeral?
From: Snuffy
Date: 18 Dec 01 - 07:53 PM

My mother-in-law, who died in January, was a big fan of Edmund Hockridge. There were nice hymns at the church service, but as we walked into the crematorium there was Edmund Hockridge singing:

Oh, what a beautiful morning,
Oh, what a beautiful day,
I've got a wonderful feeling,
Ev'rything's going my way.

WassaiL! V

Subject: RE: What song do you want at your funeral?
From: breezy
Date: 18 Dec 01 - 08:14 PM

Life of a man [the leaf], the raising of the Mary ellen Carter, The Funeral Song-to keep em guessing! and The Joy of Living then BREAD OF HEAVEN.gUESS WE'LL NEED LOTS OF VOICES SO WATCH THIS SPACE!! its o.k. I died playing in a restaurant tonight.Your a bloody rotten audience while I am very good.

Subject: RE: What song do you want at your funeral?
From: alanww
Date: 19 Dec 01 - 01:00 PM

WYSIWYG She died in a car crash in November 1998 aged 30, but I only recently came across the thread (and perhaps I didn't feel up to posting it before, anyway).

I think is one I would like
It is time to go now, hawl away the anchor ...
at my funeral - that's before all my favourite joyous songs at the wake, of course!

Alan

Subject: RE: What song do you want at your funeral?
From: Mr Red
Date: 19 Dec 01 - 06:17 PM

Horses Brawl (Branle, Bransle or whatever) and instead of singing I want the folkies leaving the non-denominational humanist room in sets of 8 with a left in front, together, left behind, together (rpt twice) & jump.

Subject: RE: What song do you want at your funeral?
From: GUEST,Oldtimemusic1
Date: 19 Dec 01 - 10:33 PM

ON ZION'S GLORIOUS SUMMIT STOOD A RANSOMED HOST REDEEMED BY BLOOD THEY SANG THEIR HYMNS IN STRAINS DEVINE I HEARD THEIR SONGS AND STROVE TO JOIN

Subject: RE: What song do you want at your funeral?
From: Rolfyboy6
Date: 20 Dec 01 - 01:57 AM

I go for "Lay Down Your Weary Tune" for part of the program, but really at heart I remain the Mississippi Valley chicken Slicker I was in my youth. And I want to hear/not hear "Flee As A Bird To The Mountain", "We Are Soldiers In The Army", the unrepentant "Little Sadie", "I'll Be Glad When Your Gone, You Rascal You", and "Oh, Didn't He Ramble". And some part of me wants someone to do rousing versions of "Duncan And Brady" and "Never Let Your Deal Go Down." Jack of Diamonds is a hard card to play.

Subject: RE: What song do you want at your funeral?
From: GUEST,Canuck
Date: 20 Dec 01 - 05:10 AM

Angel Band
And everybody has to belt out the chorus!!!
You can hear this song on the O brother! where art thou? soundtrack.

Subject: RE: What song do you want at your funeral?
From: Trevor
Date: 20 Dec 01 - 06:07 AM

I went to the funeral of a friend last week. For years he'd said that the Russian national anthem was so dirge-like that he wanted it played at his funeral. His death was sudden and unexpected so it came as a surprise to find out that he had left very specific instructions. As his coffin entered the chapel the organist stopped playing her voluntary and a scratchy recording of the Red Army Ensemble singing the anthem rumbled from an old sound system. And do you know what - we all giggled! Dave had cracked his last joke from the beyond - it was a brilliant moment.

Looking at Rowana's earlier post reminded me that when my father-in-law, who was also a naval officer, died his widow asked for something with a maritime connection to be played. The only thing the organist knew that was vaguely connected with water was 'Oh Shenandoah' and she was blasting away at this while we awaited the coffin in the chapel. She, the organist, was blind and the arrangement was that the undertaker would slam the chapel door hard so that she would know when to start playing solemn music for the progress of the pall bearers. Unfortunately she was so stuck in to 'Shenandoah' that she didn't hear the door closing and the undertaker had to open and slam the door three times before he could carry on.

Subject: RE: What song do you want at your funeral?
From: Lanfranc
Date: 20 Dec 01 - 05:14 PM

Strange that a little-heard Dylan song ("Lay down your weary tune") features so frequently. I would be one of my choices, too. Along with Randy Newman's "Old Man's Song".

When I still went to church and had some vestiges of faith, I wanted "Just as I am" to the tune from "Olivet to Calvary".

Now I want a melodeon to play "Parting Glass" as my ashes are scattered round buoy 9 on Holyfield Lake in the Lee valley, where I sail my Wayfarer when I have time. I then want the melodeon thrown in after the tune is finished! That would be my last good deed for humanity!

Subject: RE: What song do you want at your funeral?
From: GUEST,Roger
Date: 20 Dec 01 - 06:52 PM

Whatever else was played I would want peopel to leave to "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life" , Eric Idle.

Subject: Lyr Add: OLD DOCTOR WANGO TANGO
From: GUEST,paul
Date: 20 Dec 01 - 09:38 PM

Old Doctor Wango Tango

As a child I received the LP record Captain Burl Ives' Ark as a present. The current version on CD has completely different songs. There were a number of unique songs on this album that I've never heard anyplace else. This is the one I remember best.

As an adult, I sang this to my kitty, Montana Wildhack. She would sometimes growl when I got to the part about giving his animals nothing to eat. Now I sometimes sing it to my mice. They don't seem concerned with this abuse, probably because there are no mice in the song.

Old Doctor Wango Tango
(sung as a slow bassey dirge)

Old Doctor Wango Tango, had a long red nose,
and Old Doctor Wango Tango always wore green clothes.
And Old Doctor Wango Tango had a thin horse Sam.
He had a dog named Bowser, and a cat named Touser,
and a black crow Flippity Flam Flam Flam,
and a black crow Flippity Flam.

Old Doctor Wango Tango, lived on a biscuit a day,
and Old Doctor Wango Tango got very thin this way.
And Old Doctor Wango Tango, gave his animals nothing to eat,
but it would come to pass, they would find a blade of grass,
or a crust or a bone without meat meat meat,
or a crust or a bone without meat.

Old Doctor Wango Tango, rode to the top of a hill,
and Old Doctor Wango Tango found a wind very cold and chill.
Away blew Old Doctor Tango (swish).
Away blew his thin horse Sam (swoosh).
Away blew Bowser (swish), and away blew Touser (swash).
And the black crow Flippity Flam Flam Flam,
and the black crow Flippity Flam. (3 second pause) (swoosh).

Line Breaks <br> added.
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: What song do you want at your funeral?
From: leprechaun
Date: 20 Dec 01 - 11:32 PM

Drop-kick Me Jesus, Through the Goal Post of Life

Subject: RE: What song do you want at your funeral?
From: Kaleea
Date: 21 Dec 01 - 12:37 AM

Song? I only get one song? Perhaps Devilmaster & I are kindred souls as I have always thought I would prefer the New Orleans way of going out in style. If not then, "Just lay me head on a keg of brandy, it is my fancy . . "

Subject: RE: What song do you want at your funeral?
From: Ian Darby
Date: 21 Dec 01 - 04:41 AM

"Blaze Away" sung by either Norma Waterson or Josef Locke, "We'll make a bonfire of out troubles, and we'll watch them blaze away...." When me Mam died we played "Jerusalem" and a tape of Morris tunes I'd done on my MIDI stuff, we filed out to a versions of "Lord of the Dance", "Merry Sherwood Rangers" and "Blue Eyed Stranger" as if done by a wired up Albion Band. (Four on the floor Drum and Bass heavy). On my Gravestone I want the words "I told you I was ill". (This has already been seen in a Manchester graveyard, or may be apocryphal, I don't care). Excellent thread.... Happy Xmas.