Music for my funeral

[NorthBrit]

Marble Halls

Dvorak -  'Largo'  Symphony Number  9

Only Time

[monkeysarefun]

I'm all for the "dig a deep hole, drop the body in, then fill it in immediately after" approach. It's very cost-effective and saves a lot of time. I just need a deeper hole to contain all of my kits.

 

I need to change my screen resolution because I thought your post said

 

I just need a deeper hole to contain all of my kids

 

Egyptian Pharaoh or Chinese Emperor style.

[Judge Dread]

Please don't let me be misunderstood by the Animals will do for me. 

[Dave47549]

.

Edited October 4, 2021 by Dave47549
Removed pointless guff

[bike2steam]

As long as I'm Comfortably Numb, it'll be ok   

[Unicorn1]

I'm nearer N-one than new to service, but relatives have been left in no doubt that no ceremony is required. BUT, one tune MUST be played:

 

Motorhead's 'Don't need religion'.

 

 

- "Don't need Sunday television,

You bet your life I don't beed religion".

I have left instructions for Motorhead's 'Stone dead Forever' to be played when I go!

Les

[wamwig]

I'm with Bike2steam its got to be Pink Floyd.

[runs as required]

I have posted before about poor old stepfather-in-law's funeral .

His chosen 'Blaze Away', the anthem of Belle Vue Speedway, was rejected as inappropriate by the Anglican cleric in charge of Norwich Crem. despite the pleadings of his nonagenarian widow and Norwich step-daughter.

 

He was a Peak Forest signalman for 40 odd years right through the war. Latterly he suffered 'Tourette's syndrome' and confessed to having recurrent nightmares of Japanese invaders taking over his signal box during night shift.

dh

[monkeysarefun]

If I out live  the few people I like, so that there are only condescending younger people hoping to get something out of my will  attending my funeral, then I will annoy them with this.

 

[Jim Martin]

In a similar vein, I'm quite tempted by "Fool If You Think It's Over"

 

Jim

[spikey]

Having just left the funeral industry there are SO many songs that I just cannot listen to any more!

 

I had exactly the same problem when I packed up photographing weddings after having done 400+ of them ... 

[rockershovel]

I'm with Noel Coward on this one - "extraordinary, the potency of cheap music"

 

A sometime neighbour, an American service veteran and a man I'd never believed to have any religion in him, insisted on "Battle Hymn of the Republic" on the grounds that he had sung it, with those around him, as they had approached the Normandy beaches. It had served him at that great crisis in his life, and would serve again for the last one.

 

So, on that basis;

 

Blake's Jerusalem, for the political beliefs I've long since lost, and the "green and pleasant land" I've never stopped loving in all my wandering.

 

Guide Me, Great Redeemer (Bread of Heaven) - molto con fortissimo - because anyone who knows me would, sooner or later, mention rugby, and if there's anything more evocative of the game than that, raising the roof at Cardiff, I don't know it. Plus, it's a better song than Swing Low, Sweet Chariot.

 

23rd Psalm, for personal reasons

 

For Those In Peril On The Sea - con brio - for obvious reasons.

 

Orwell once wrote that "the English, though almost forgetting the name of Christ, retain a deep tinge of Christian feeling" and I think that remains true. People with no formal observances at all, still appear to believe vaguely in some sort of afterlife. You have to choose what matters at such times, and pop music doesn't work for me that way.

[34theletterbetweenB&D]

... You have to choose what matters at such times, and pop music doesn't work for me that way.

There are rare exceptions, one of the finest hymns of C20th is the D.Bowie and Queen composition 'Under Pressure'. That's on the sheet for my celebration of life. (An advantage of being an active religionist is that we deal with our own deaths every week, so there's no point revisiting that after it has happened. It's a done deal at that point.)

[Tony Davis]

When I'm old and wise - Alan Parsons Project

Can't find my way home - Blind Faith

We all go back to mother earth - Memphis Slim.

 

Just a shame I won't be there to listen to them!

[Bernard Lamb]

All things bright and beautiful including the banned verse. That should upset the PC people and the modern church goers.

Bob Dylan, If not for you. That will have some relatives wondering if they should take it seriously or not.

Finally as my remains depart, as happened at the funeral of the wife of a friend last year. The Seekers, The carnival is over.

Then, in full, the last movement of Mahler 3.

What did a critic say about that. If heaven has a national anthem then this is it.

Bernard

[Dan Griffin]

What about 'stayin alive' !!

 

Followed by that song the muppets used to do, 'ba nam na nam'

 

Hee hee

[gismorail]

Surprised this has not yet be mentioned ......Stairway to Heaven Led Zepp...........although one might being a little presumptuous maybe !!

[Two_sugars]

This'll do for me:-

 

[rab]

This will only mean anything to fellow Cornishmen,

but I went to a cremation last week where the music

as we went in was Lamorna, and as we left, Trelawny,

both by a male voice choir.

(For the non-Cornish folk, Trelawny is considered

by many to be the Cornish Anthem).

[The Stationmaster]

I'm with Noel Coward on this one - "extraordinary, the potency of cheap music"

 

A sometime neighbour, an American service veteran and a man I'd never believed to have any religion in him, insisted on "Battle Hymn of the Republic" on the grounds that he had sung it, with those around him, as they had approached the Normandy beaches. It had served him at that great crisis in his life, and would serve again for the last one.

 

So, on that basis;

 

Blake's Jerusalem, for the political beliefs I've long since lost, and the "green and pleasant land" I've never stopped loving in all my wandering.

 

Guide Me, Great Redeemer (Bread of Heaven) - molto con fortissimo - because anyone who knows me would, sooner or later, mention rugby, and if there's anything more evocative of the game than that, raising the roof at Cardiff, I don't know it. Plus, it's a better song than Swing Low, Sweet Chariot.

 

23rd Psalm, for personal reasons

 

For Those In Peril On The Sea - con brio - for obvious reasons.

 

Orwell once wrote that "the English, though almost forgetting the name of Christ, retain a deep tinge of Christian feeling" and I think that remains true. People with no formal observances at all, still appear to believe vaguely in some sort of afterlife. You have to choose what matters at such times, and pop music doesn't work for me that way.

 

Seems you've picked the same two as me (Jerusalem and Guide Me O Thou Great Redeemer) - I'm not a particularly religious person but I do like a good hymn with a decent tune.

 

Any other track would clearly have to be from either 'Trains In the Hills' or 'The Dukedog and The City' although I could get really nasty and specify a track from a website which, in its full length version, has me busily talking about what assistance we'd need for our (failed) train - the earlier snatch of two 'Castles' gradually puffing into surrender to Dainton might however not be ideal.

[caradoc]

As a Prog Rock fan I'm going to bore the (probably small) congregation rigid (just like me, ha ha) with a 20 minute opus. The serious bit will be Estonia by Marillion, a beautiful song about death.

[davefrk]

My instructions to my younger other half have been Jethro Tull's 'The Chequered Flag'.  I'll need to have a think for the trundle to the big bad fire.

I've been to a few very good humanist funerals recently and I'd prefer that plus a living wake would be good if I knew when I was going to go.

 

Anyway, time to cheer up and make my tea.

 

Dave Franks.

[wombatofludham]

When my late father was dying, he took to watching Songs of Praise.  Having been at best agnostic up until then, I questioned him as to whether he'd suddenly Found God.

​"No" came the reply, "I'm chosing my hymns".  Basically he was using Songs of Praise as an Argos Hymn catalogue.

 

Being agnosto-aetheist myself, if I bother having a service when I cark it I want a humanist service, a coffin in the shape of a Midland Red S17 bus, and once cremated, if the Fairbourne railway is still going, I want my ashes shovelling into the firebox so as the train chuffs through the village my ashes will be sucked up through the smokebox and I'll be able to get into the eyes of all those locally who have p***ed me off over the past 11 years.  Music for when the bus goes into the cremator?  "Erano Giorni dell Arcobaleno", Italy's 1972 Eurovision entry.  The lyrics are sublime and the song is just perfect.

[rockershovel]

There are rare exceptions, one of the finest hymns of C20th is the D.Bowie and Queen composition 'Under Pressure'. That's on the sheet for my celebration of life. (An advantage of being an active religionist is that we deal with our own deaths every week, so there's no point revisiting that after it has happened. It's a done deal at that point.)

I'm afraid that I don't understand your point at all. What's an "active religionist" in this context?

Edited September 26, 2017 by rockershovel

[rockershovel]

Re #48 above, I'd prefer to put my habitual cantankerousness aside at such a time, and be content that however some people may have offended me in life, they won't be able to do so in future, try as they might

 

I've often thought that in terms of a place to await whatever be, under the shade in a country churchyard, is about the best place I can think of.