Songs to play at my funeral #1
June 27th 2008 07:10
Slip Sliding Away...
'Music to play at my funeral' has always been a lively topic of conversation among my friends, and it seems to have been done a fair bit (to death, if you will) in the media lately. Ultimately, I suppose, who the fuck cares what gets played? You're no longer around to enjoy it. It might as well be something faintly ridiculous or a bit edgy. I used to say it would be something like 'Me I Disconnect From You' by Gary Numan, or 'Fade to Grey' by Visage.
I mean, we all get a bit sick of the emotionally manipulative stuff that gets played at a lot of funerals - you know, designed to wring every last tear out of you when you're either 1) wrung dry with the genuine exhaustion of grief or 2) on the periphery and embarrassed by your limited acquaintance with the deceased - in which case a bit of emotional lubricant (in the form of 'The Way We Were' by Barbara Streisand or something) can be useful in helping you squeeze out a tear and feel like less of a fraud... well, less of an intruder, anyway.
In death, the mass populace are as predictable as they were in life, which accounts for the life-endingly dull list of 'most popular' funeral songs, which are almost as bleak as the 'most popular' wedding songs (which usually include nauseating doses of Bryan Adams or Mariah Carey). I don't like to judge the final selections of the departed, but let's just see a selection of some of the worst (and, discouragingly, most popular):
My Heart Will Go On - Celine Dion
Hero - Mariah Carey (weddings, funerals, you can't escape her)
The Wind Beneath My Wings - Bette Midler
Goodbye My Lover - James Blunt (enough to raise the dead in indignation)
Angels - Robbie Williams (this one falls into the tear-wringing category - it's not a bad song, but it's an all-purpose, calculating, commercial weepy)
But I suppose that, while your own funeral is distinctly hard to care about, short of hoping it's a long way away, it's important for the loved ones you'll hopefully have acquired and might want to soothe. It becomes a pretty important tribute and you want it to say something about your life. A friend told me a darkly humorous story about a funeral where the schlep who put the Simply Red CD in the player (that was the first obvious mistake, but again, who am I to judge) cued up 'Money's too tight to mention' instead of 'Holding back the years'. This prompted outrage and tears from the deceased's family of entirely the wrong sort... which makes it all the more funny. Funerals are pretty surreal at the best of times, which is probably why there's so much fun poked at them in popular culture (Death at a Funeral etc.). You've gotta laugh... and all that.
Anyway, the purpose of this post is to tell you that, these days, there is a song I would like played at my funeral that isn't jokey or ridiculous or 'edgy'. It's lovely and human and sad and I can imagine it will actually achieve its primary objective of making the liggers (who don't know me but will inevitably rock up to my funeral out of curiosity) cry (and you can't say fairer than that of a funeral song):
Slip Sliding Away by Paul Simon.
It's the perfect choice, and I wonder why we don't hear more of its funereal application. More about it in my next post - along with my other funeral songs.
'Music to play at my funeral' has always been a lively topic of conversation among my friends, and it seems to have been done a fair bit (to death, if you will) in the media lately. Ultimately, I suppose, who the fuck cares what gets played? You're no longer around to enjoy it. It might as well be something faintly ridiculous or a bit edgy. I used to say it would be something like 'Me I Disconnect From You' by Gary Numan, or 'Fade to Grey' by Visage.
I mean, we all get a bit sick of the emotionally manipulative stuff that gets played at a lot of funerals - you know, designed to wring every last tear out of you when you're either 1) wrung dry with the genuine exhaustion of grief or 2) on the periphery and embarrassed by your limited acquaintance with the deceased - in which case a bit of emotional lubricant (in the form of 'The Way We Were' by Barbara Streisand or something) can be useful in helping you squeeze out a tear and feel like less of a fraud... well, less of an intruder, anyway.
In death, the mass populace are as predictable as they were in life, which accounts for the life-endingly dull list of 'most popular' funeral songs, which are almost as bleak as the 'most popular' wedding songs (which usually include nauseating doses of Bryan Adams or Mariah Carey). I don't like to judge the final selections of the departed, but let's just see a selection of some of the worst (and, discouragingly, most popular):
My Heart Will Go On - Celine Dion
Hero - Mariah Carey (weddings, funerals, you can't escape her)
The Wind Beneath My Wings - Bette Midler
Goodbye My Lover - James Blunt (enough to raise the dead in indignation)
Angels - Robbie Williams (this one falls into the tear-wringing category - it's not a bad song, but it's an all-purpose, calculating, commercial weepy)
But I suppose that, while your own funeral is distinctly hard to care about, short of hoping it's a long way away, it's important for the loved ones you'll hopefully have acquired and might want to soothe. It becomes a pretty important tribute and you want it to say something about your life. A friend told me a darkly humorous story about a funeral where the schlep who put the Simply Red CD in the player (that was the first obvious mistake, but again, who am I to judge) cued up 'Money's too tight to mention' instead of 'Holding back the years'. This prompted outrage and tears from the deceased's family of entirely the wrong sort... which makes it all the more funny. Funerals are pretty surreal at the best of times, which is probably why there's so much fun poked at them in popular culture (Death at a Funeral etc.). You've gotta laugh... and all that.
Anyway, the purpose of this post is to tell you that, these days, there is a song I would like played at my funeral that isn't jokey or ridiculous or 'edgy'. It's lovely and human and sad and I can imagine it will actually achieve its primary objective of making the liggers (who don't know me but will inevitably rock up to my funeral out of curiosity) cry (and you can't say fairer than that of a funeral song):
Slip Sliding Away by Paul Simon.
It's the perfect choice, and I wonder why we don't hear more of its funereal application. More about it in my next post - along with my other funeral songs.
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