Funeral Music.

[prendrelemick]

I am now in my later fifties, and so I am attending more and more funerals as the generation above me starts to die off.

I've been surprised more than once by the musical choices made by the deceased for their funerals. You have the eulogies and the obituaries, but they are formal and constrained. The music though is a final glimpse of the person's character.

Anyway Like a teenage girl planning her wedding, I've been doing my funeral music. So far I have decided on Beethoven's Pastoral as people gather, and also as the conveyor takes me through the final curtain, and the grief ridden masses disperse, Why not leave them with something uplifting?

For a hymn, "Thine Be The Glory" and for the now customary moments of reflection, Lark Ascending - there won't be a dry eye in the house.

Is this morbid? Has anybody else done this.

[mal4mac]

Sounds a bit upbeat for me, Mick. One idea that springs to mind is:

[Borodin Quartet] Dmitri Shostakovich - String Quartet No. 8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4gGZJWjbgBI

The coffin could be lowered during the extremely sad largo, visible flames bursting into action as we move into the lively allegro, waltzing during the allegretto is optional...

[Whosis]

That's different. I usually think more about what people will say. People are finally passing away, now that I'm nearly 30. Until high school, this was not a world I knew.

[prendrelemick]

Sounds a bit upbeat for me, Mick. One idea that springs to mind is:

[Borodin Quartet] Dmitri Shostakovich - String Quartet No. 8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4gGZJWjbgBI

The coffin could be lowered during the extremely sad largo, visible flames bursting into action as we move into the lively allegro, waltzing during the allegretto is optional...


Ah yes, very good - reflecting the turmoil of grief that will be swirling around the grave side.


I had wondered if Mozart's Don Giovanni being dragged down into hell music would be in bad taste at mine

[Gilliatt Gurgle]

Prelude
From the Beginning
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fBvGZP4srZA

Entrance Procession
Karn Evil No. 9
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IwSTe9uit48

Eulogy
Lucky Man
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=unY5MPs1MvU

Viewing
Promenade and the Gnome-Pictures at an Exhibition
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_bzs4HOYliY

“Lead me from tortured dreams
Childhood themes of nights alone,
Wipe away endless years,
Childhood tears as dry as stone.

From seeds of confusion,
Illusions darks blossoms have grown.
Even now in furrows of sorrow
The dance still is sung.

My life's course is guided
Decided by limits drawn
On charts of my past days
And pathways since I was born.”


Final Committal
Fanfare For the Common Man
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OgpnlLz7WR0

[Lokasenna]

I remember reading somewhere that 'On a Highway to Hell' has become one of the most popular pieces of funeral music in modern Britain - one hopes it is meant ironically...

I don't think it's morbid at all to plan one's own funeral. I've not done so yet, but I fully intend mine to be fun affair, with a damn great party after - so 'funeral' music probably won't feature too heavily.

My funeral is also likely to feature quite a few readings from literature (I refuse to have some poxy priest reading bit of the Bible, even if it is over my dead body). As well as medieval poetry (naturally for me), there's likely to be quite a bit of Shakespeare, Dryden, Shelley, Tennyson and Yeats being read out... anyone else got some ear-marked funeral literature?

[AuntShecky]

"So Long, It's Been Good to Know Ya."

"Toot, Toot, Tootsie Goodbye"

and the Maurice Williams classic, "Stay (Just a Little Bit Longer)"

It occurs to me that these song titles sound as if an 80-year old chose them. Well, maybe yours fooly will get lucky and last til that ripe ol' age at least.

[mal4mac]

My funeral is also likely to feature quite a few readings from literature (I refuse to have some poxy priest reading bit of the Bible, even if it is over my dead body). As well as medieval poetry (naturally for me), there's likely to be quite a bit of Shakespeare, Dryden, Shelley, Tennyson and Yeats being read out... anyone else got some ear-marked funeral literature?

Shakespeare: Prospero:

Our revels now are ended. These our actors,
As I foretold you, were all spirits, and
Are melted into air, into thin air:
And like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capp'd tow'rs, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve,
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on; and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.

Hamlet:
There is special providence in
the fall of a sparrow. If it be now, 'tis not to come; if it be not to
come, it will be now; if it be not now, yet it will come—the
readiness is all. Since no man, of aught he leaves, knows what is't
to leave betimes, let be.

Funeral song from Cymbeline:

Fear no more the heat o' the sun;
Nor the furious winter's rages,
Thou thy worldly task hast done,
Home art gone, and ta'en thy wages;
Golden lads and girls all must,
As chimney sweepers come to dust.

Fear no more the frown of the great,
Thou art past the tyrant's stroke:
Care no more to clothe and eat;
To thee the reed is as the oak:
The sceptre, learning, physic, must
All follow this, and come to dust.

Fear no more the lightning-flash,
Nor the all-dread thunder-stone;
Fear not slander, censure rash;
Thou hast finished joy and moan;
All lovers young, all lovers must
Consign to thee, and come to dust.
-------------------------------------------

Epicurus ("Death is nothing to us...") via Lucretius (De Rerum Natura) translated by Dryden:

So, when our mortal frame shall be disjoin’d,
The lifeless lump uncoupled from the mind,
From sense of grief and pain we shall be free;
We shall not feel, because we shall not be.
Though earth in seas, and seas in heaven were lost,
We should not move, we only should be toss’d.
Nay, e’en suppose when we have suffer’d fate
The soul should feel in her divided state,
What’s that to us? for we are only we,
While souls and bodies in one frame agree.
Nay, though our atoms should revolve by chance,
And matter leap into the former dance;
Though time our life and motion could restore,
And make our bodies what they were before,
What gain to us would all this bustle bring?
The new-made man would be another thing.

[prendrelemick]

You go to all this trouble arranging a cracking funeral and you don't get to see it. Pre-death funerals could be the answer.

[Lokasenna]

You go to all this trouble arranging a cracking funeral and you don't get to see it. Pre-death funerals could be the answer.

As the great Dave Allen put it, 'It's the best bloody party of your life, and you aren't invited.'

[Paulclem]

You go to all this trouble arranging a cracking funeral and you don't get to see it. Pre-death funerals could be the answer.

That's a great idea. Though you could see people having 2 or 3 before they finally drop off the mortal coil. That might not be a bad idea though - a few funeral do's.

As for music - I'm not much into classical - I'd go as far as saying I'm a classical ignoramus...or is that something else.

Anyway, for a long time I thought I'd have Always Look on the Bright Side of Life, but I reckon that it's a bit old hat now.

[Helga]

I have been to so many funerals both family and friends, and I am just 28 years old. I think they are changing. When I was a kid I remember them being filled with classical music and a few older icelandic songs now they have music the person liked. I went to a funeral a few years ago when a friend was buried and they played Radiohead and stuff we used to listen to together, that was a lot harder to handle then some old song about a flower in the mountain (there is a very popular song in funerals about a flower).

Mine would probably have a lot of reading, the passage when Beowulf dies and some Shakespeare, Marlowe maybe. The music is a bit more difficult, maybe a song my dad sang in his band and was played in his funeral, oh and most definitely some song by Nick Cave and 'Death is not the end' by Bob Dylan, though I have to admit I prefer the Cave version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJXN5VPkyH8

[prendrelemick]

Our landlord died at 89, He'd been planning a birthday bash for his 90th - so the family went ahead with the party for his funeral. It was a great do, pymms on the lawn, string quartet in the marquee, free bar and pies for us peasants. Brilliant!

[The Atheist]

Ah yes, very good - reflecting the turmoil of grief that will be swirling around the grave side.


I had wondered if Mozart's Don Giovanni being dragged down into hell music would be in bad taste at mine

Great subject, and perfect music, although an advisory to grannies beforehand might help.

I think the idea of planning a funeral beforehand is a good one, if only for the reason that it saves a lot of questions being asked at a time when nobody wants to answer them.


I don't think it's morbid at all to plan one's own funeral. I've not done so yet, but I fully intend mine to be fun affair, with a damn great party after - so 'funeral' music probably won't feature too heavily.

Smart plan. I believe the most-played at British funerals was Always Look on the Bright Side



You go to all this trouble arranging a cracking funeral and you don't get to see it. Pre-death funerals could be the answer.

They get my vote - a couple of people around town who are terminally ill have done that lately.