Few words this week, but much music.
The other day, prompted by I don’t really know what, I asked the good people of Twitter what music they would have at their funeral. The answers are, in no particular order, below.
The selection is, inevitably, geared towards ‘classical’ music – a lot of my circle live in that world, after all. But there’s a variety of other stuff, too, from Yakety Sax to Bowie, Gracie Fields to Miles Davis, Blue Öyster Cult to The Four Tops. Some of it is deeply familiar to me, and would take place on my own shortlist; others I had to look up. Some I have listened to (sorry, Mogwai lovers) through gritted teeth; others have been a delicious discovery (thank you Tripod and Eddie Perfect – that was lovely). It should be noted that a couple of respondents said they wouldn’t be having a funeral. I register their preference with this double line break.
There’s a conversation to be had about all this: the importance of music, our aversion to looking death in the eye, what people’s choice of funeral music says about them, how we judge others by their musical tastes, the endless variety of ways humans express their humanity through music, how and why different things speak to different people, whether what Lee Marvin does to Wand’rin Star can be described as singing…
But that’s for another time. Have a listen – maybe choose something you don’t know, or wouldn’t normally be attracted to. You might find, like me, that your ears open just a bit.
And if you want to add your own, do feel free to do so in the comments. Thanks to all those who took the trouble to respond.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JlbBIpTPM8o
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SE8qSAok7cI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uvz-fYbFN_o
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fnX9tEeQpN4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U5sSEkZ86ts
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yufsEgTcEOc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJz2LZuetPk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CtCuh99yOPc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_XKl8nCiLM
https://vimeo.com/271796228
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Nu6gWgvJoA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s5JRypoiwu4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0GfPBcj5nJ8
Oh how lovely! I missed this request because I’d have been all over it. I do actually have this entirely decided and written down. My choices are:
Simon and Garfunkel – Bridge Over Troubled Water
Rolling Stones – Sympathy for the Devil (with everyone joining in the Woo Woos)
Sarah McLachlan – Fumbling Towards Ecstasy
Kirsty MacColl – Days
I missed it too but here you are – the first are from my father (who still attends church and growls about most of the music) but Maurice Greene’s Voluntary 1 in G or William Walond’s Voluntary 11 in D, a piper playing Highland Cathedral as people leave and the 23rd Psalm sung to Brother James Air – If you need hymns as well he will go with Praise God from whom all blessings flow and All people who on earth do dwell – belted out cheerfully please
Me, Si Bheag Si Mhor, Stanley’s trumpet voluntary, Tukutendereza (sung by the kids from the refugee camp my friends run) and the Ode to Joy please
(I know – we Downunderiites are a weird mob.)