Songs for dog memorial service?

Subject: RE: Song(s) for dog memorial service?
From: Grab
Date: 20 Sep 06 - 09:02 AM

I've been a wild rover
Howling at the moon

Anything by Howling Wolf, Three Dog Night or the Wolfe Tones.

Subject: RE: Song(s) for dog memorial service?
From: Dave'sWife
Date: 20 Sep 06 - 12:45 PM

Genie - thank you EVER so much for your rewrite. it's simply marvelous. We'll give it a run through this afternoon when the kids come by after school. They've really enjoyed reworking the song and I think showing them this slightly different version will be a good learning experience for them. I'll let them pick which lines they feel phrase best for them although in general, I like your version much better for elegance and ease. I also like the idea of everybody woofing and howling at the end.

Our service is set for saturday afternoon. I am so thankful to you all for your help with this. Using an older tune such as this turned out to be a great idea. the children know the melody and have been working at singing the new lyrics enthusiastically. They aren't even really that sad anymore although I think they will get a bit emotional when it comes time to scatter his ashes. The new words don't dwell much on death and it should prove to be a nice little get-together. Several adults who are coming are bringing their own dogs so the kids will have a some to pet and fuss over.

genie, I like your version so much I hope you'd share it with others who might use it as a base for their own doggie memorials. The children have decided that they prefer the title 'our Doggie Sunshine" to "Goodbye to our sunshine" and I think that's appropriate.

Subject: RE: Song(s) for dog memorial service?
From: Genie
Date: 20 Sep 06 - 10:11 PM

Dave'sWife, glad my lyric suggestions were helpful.   This is the folk process, so rewrites and tweaking and picking and choosing are fair game for all.

Remember also that how well a line scans depends on things like rests (pauses), syncopation, and phrasing (e.g., whether you sing a different syllable on every note or not). So your original lyrics might scan just fine.

Sounds like it's going to be a doggie memorial that's just what a tribute to a dear friend should be.

Genie

Subject: RE: Song(s) for dog memorial service?
From: Barry Finn
Date: 21 Sep 06 - 02:56 AM

Hi Snuffy
I was gonna mention "Bellman" but you were already there with it. I was tickled that you followed up with Ol Shep. It was a right proper thing to have followed it up with too. I was at a session, it's gotta be 20-25 years ago & the great fiddler Seamus Connelly ask me to sing something (he used to do that to when he wanted a break) so I did Bellman & he followed it up with the Doris Day song on fiddle & did a wonderful job too, mind you of "How Much Is That Doggie In The Window". I now say that I been twice honored by singing that song, I guess it's just a good luck song for me & a good one to bury a dog by too.

Another dog song I've always been fond of is "The Hound Dawg Song" also called "They Gotta Quite Kicking my Dog Around". Not really a dead dog song but it is a howl. Droole!

Barry

Subject: RE: Song(s) for dog memorial service?
From: Dave'sWife
Date: 22 Sep 06 - 11:19 AM

Barry_Finn - I thought of How Much is That Doggie in the Window and so did the kids. Had we not gotten off to such a smashing start with Your Are My Sunshine, I was considering using Doggie In the Window for the tune to our tribute.

We're doing very well with genie's version of Our Doggie Sunshine and things should go very well tomorrow. All that's left to do is go pick up his ashes.

I am going to sugest the idea of an Autumn festival party for the other doggies if this goes well. After discussing it with the children, they expressed an interest in having bobbing for apples and other suitable activities. We'll most likely have to hold it in mid to late october. That should give it enough distance from the memorial so they won't be sad to come back over to our yard. The kids really would like a shot at singing some of the other songs that were mentioned. They had no idea there were so many poems and songs about dogs.

Thanks again. We're going to send Puppers off with style and then have a happy dog party in a month or less. Everybody wins!

Subject: RE: Song(s) for dog memorial service?
From: Scoville
Date: 22 Sep 06 - 03:59 PM

Did the dog have a favorite song?

I'm not kidding. Our old dog loved "Happy Birthday"--he would get all excited and howl like crazy--so my parents sang that for him before they had to have him put down. Not very funereal but it was what Ootek would most have liked had he been in any shape to enjoy it.

I once had to help sing "Just a Closer Walk With Thee" to a dead cocker spaniel when I was a vet tech. I don't know that the dog was a music lover but it was a special song to the owner.

Subject: RE: Song(s) for dog memorial service?
From: Sorcha
Date: 22 Sep 06 - 04:21 PM

Keep us posted, DW.

Subject: RE: Song(s) for dog memorial service?
From: Becca72
Date: 22 Sep 06 - 04:32 PM

I loved "Old Shep" when I was a child. I seem to remember requesting it from my dad a lot(that and "Jesse James"..I had a thing for death). But I have to say that given the age range of the kids you're talking about including in the service I think it's a little too sad. I lost my 13 old cat in the spring and a couple of days after was listening to dad's first album (recently obtained in CD form) while driving home from work. "Old Shep" caused me to have to pull over and have a really good cry before I could make it the rest of the way home. I think it would be too much for the kids to handle.
The changes to "You are my Sunshine" would be wonderful, IMO

Subject: RE: Song(s) for dog memorial service?
From: lamarca
Date: 22 Sep 06 - 05:06 PM

There is an excellent Kipling poem that's probably a bit too grim for the kids, but really struck me to the bone when my childhood companion, our family's cocker spaniel, Ginger, finally died.

The Power of the Dog by Rudyard Kipling - from Actions and Reactions

There is sorrow enough in the natural way
From men and women to fill our day;
And when we are certain of sorrow in store,
Why do we always arrange for more?
Brothers and Sisters, I bid you beware
Of giving your heart to a dog to tear.

Buy a pup and your money will buy
Love unflinching that cannot lie—
Perfect passion and worship fed
By a kick in the ribs or a pat on the head.
Nevertheless it is hardly fair
To risk your heart for a dog to tear.

When the fourteen years which Nature permits
Are closing in asthma, or tumour, or fits,
And the vet's unspoken prescription runs
To lethal chambers or loaded guns,
Then you will find—it's your own affair—
But . . . you've given your heart to a dog to tear.

When the body that lived at your single will,
With its whimper of welcome, is stilled (how still!).
When the spirit that answered your every mood
Is gone—wherever it goes—for good,
You will discover how much you care,
And will give your heart to a dog to tear.

We've sorrow enough in the natural way,
When it comes to burying Christian clay.
Our loves are not given, but only lent,
At compound interest of cent per cent.
Though it is not always the case, I believe,
That the longer we've kept 'em, the more do we grieve.
For, when debts are payable, right or wrong,
A short-time loan is as bad as a long—
So why in—Heaven (before we are there)
Should we give our hearts to a dog to tear?

Subject: RE: Song(s) for dog memorial service?
From: GUEST,Bee
Date: 22 Sep 06 - 10:33 PM

Dave's Wife, I'm sorry for your loss, and think your response to the local kids has been lovely. And what a lot of great dog songs and stories! I'm sitting here with tears in my eyes: it's been almost a year since our big old mutt died, and I miss her terribly.

Subject: RE: Song(s) for dog memorial service?
From: Genie
Date: 23 Sep 06 - 02:02 AM

Daves'Wife, you do know that Doggie In the Window is a bark-along song, don't you?

This is a song I often do at nursing homes and some assisted living residents (if people don't take themselves too seriously).   Not only does the group do "Arf! Arf!" or variations thereon after every 1st and 3rd line, plus appropriate cat and parrot noises in the obvious lines in the second verse, but after the "bowl of little fishies" line I ask them to "make a noise like a fish," and you never know what you're going to get in response to that. Then on the last verse, instead of "scare them away with his bark," instead of singing "bark," I go into my "attack pomeranian" impression -- which sometimes gets nearby dogs joining in the 'singing'.   Then, of course, we all do a group howl.

I don't know how appropriate this would be for a memorial service, but it can be a fun song to be for groups that love dogs and enjoy looking (and sounding) silly.

G

Subject: RE: Song(s) for dog memorial service?
From: GUEST
Date: 14 Apr 12 - 08:20 PM

Bronte by Gotye (The song is actually about a family and their dog Brontewho had to be euthanized).

Subject: RE: Song(s) for dog memorial service?
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 15 Apr 12 - 06:40 AM

Mike Heron (ex-ISB) wrote a touching country-style tribute to his childhood pet dog on his 1975 Reputation album. By chance it's on YouTube; 211 listens since October 2009, sounds about right...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ooib0fy5Kx0

Subject: RE: Song(s) for dog memorial service?
From: GUEST,Gio
Date: 15 Apr 12 - 03:41 PM

I LOVE MY DOG by Cat Stevens

Subject: RE: Song(s) for dog memorial service?
From: GUEST,Guest:: Michael William Harrison
Date: 16 Apr 12 - 12:22 AM

Yes, as mentioned earlier, "Bugler" by The Byrds on their "Farther Along" disc is really a fine song about a boy and his dog - I just love it. Also, there is a fine group from Baton Rouge, LA named "Smithfield Fair" and on one of their recent CD's they have a song titled "Greyfriars Bobby" which is just a joyful song about the loyalty of a dog. Good luck. Cheers.