Funeral Music

At my funeral I'd like them to play Dead Men Don't Need Season Tickets, but they'll probably play Vatican Broadside.

I wouldn't mind Bad Moon Rising as long as the three attendees and the man from the Co-op sang along.

Or a rousing chorus of the Moody Blues Go Now.

Confusion will be my Epitah.

I thought Oliver Condry (editor of BBC Music magazine) put it reasonably well on the Today programme.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/today/listenagain/ram/today...mbstone_20061002.ram


regards, Tam

"Wish Me Luck As You Wave Me Goodbye" or
"Highway to Hell" AC/DC
maybe "The Show Must Go On" Queen
"Funeral For A Friend" (bit presumptious that though)
"It's Too Late To Stop Now" Van Morrison
Hallelujah - Leonard Cohen
or

Death of a Ladies' Man

Ah the man she wanted all her life was hanging by a thread
"I never even knew how much I wanted you," she said.
His muscles they were numbered and his style was obsolete.
"O baby, I have come too late." She knelt beside his feet.
"I'll never see a face like yours in years of men to come
I'll never see such arms again in wrestling or in love."
And all his virtues burning in the smoky Holocaust
She took unto herself most everything her lover lost

Now the master of this landscape he was standing at the view
with a sparrow of St. Francis that he was preaching to
She beckoned to the sentry of his high religious mood
She said, "I'll make a place between my legs,
I'll show you solitude."

He offered her an orgy in a many mirrored room
He promised her protection for the issue of her womb
She moved her body hard against a sharpened metal spoon
She stopped the bloody rituals of passage to the moon

She took his much admired oriental frame of mind
and the heart-of-darkness alibi his money hides behind
She took his blonde madonna and his monastery wine --
"This mental space is occupied and everything is mine."

He tried to make a final stand beside the railway track
She said, "The art of longing's over and it's never coming back."
She took his tavern parliament, his cap, his cocky dance,
she mocked his female fashions and his working-class moustache.

The last time that I saw him he was trying hard to get
a woman's education but he's not a woman yet
And the last time that I saw her she was living with some boy
who gives her soul an empty room and gives her body joy.

So the great affair is over but whoever would have guessed
it would leave us all so vacant and so deeply unimpressed
It's like our visit to the moon or to that other star
I guess you go for nothing if you really want to go that far.

It's like our visit to the moon or to that other star
I guess you go for nothing if you really want to go that far.

It's like our visit to the moon or to that other star
I guess you go for nothing if you really want to go that far.

Copyright © 1977 Leonard Cohen

A couple of years ago we burried a friend who had died young in a car accident. His ash was burried under a tree in a forest, and the music came from a Ghetto Blaster:

Die fantastischen Vier - Ein Tag am Meer

Not Funeral music, per se, but the most appropriate, in that moment for that person.

RIP, Gerd...

Stefan

Steve, if you were to go for Leonard Cohen's 'Hallelujah', you'd surely have to pick Jeff Buckley's inspired re-interpretation (which I believe Laughing Len ackowledged as improving on his original).

Graham

Free Bird is requested for my funeral. I did say the full version,also 2112 and WYWH, could be a very long service though.

quote:

Originally posted by graham55:
Steve, if you were to go for Leonard Cohen's 'Hallelujah', you'd surely have to pick Jeff Buckley's inspired re-interpretation

Unless, of course, you're me....... [smiley]

regards, Tam

Tam, even you might change your mind if you were to listen to the version on the Mystery White Boy (live) album, which interpolates The Smiths' 'I Know It's Over'.

Graham

I'd go for Urban Spaceman by the Bonzos followed by Traveling in Style by Free. Then I'd let them all go to the pub...

Sorry to be dull here, but there is no more suitable music for celebrating a man's life at a funeral than that written for the organ by old Bach!

I want to be cremated, and want no speaking at all. I have no aniciaption of an after-life, and want no truck with pretending to be Christian.

But I think one has a maximum of 30 minutes in the crematorium, so I want 20 odd minutes of Bach on the Organ, quite probably just from CDs, and yes in Helmut Walcha's noble performances. Those who know the music may smile at the choices, of just two pieces!

Firstly, and only to be started once the mourners have settled, The Toccata, Adagio, and Fugue, during which the coffin can be put in the furnace, and then almost without a break, the great Prelude and Fugue in B Minor, which I consider my favourite piece of music, and despite its seriousness and minor key darkness, is in fact the most noble and life enhancing music I have ever grown to love.

I bet no one moves before the end, and I bet the wake would be fantastic after that! Conversation would be about anything but the "service" as there would be nothing to say. But the atmosphere would be right, and cathartic.

Fredrik

Very poignant Frederick. Music can express beautifully what often words alone cannot.

Regards

Diccus

quote:

Originally posted by davidsee:
I'd go for Urban Spaceman by the Bonzos followed by Traveling in Style by Free. Then I'd let them all go to the pub...

Nice one David, welcome to the Forum

diccus

Smiths - "How soon is now?"
The The - "Uncertain smile"
New Order - "Run wild"
Nick Drake - "Fruit tree"

and to finish................

Prodigy - "Firestarter"

oh did I not mention that I would like to be cremated.

Jono

Where To Now St Peter - Elton John

It would have to be Leonard Cohen - the voice is perfect, although KD Lang might suffice!

Obvious choice!!
Don't Fear The Reaper- Blue Oyster Cult.

Steve

Return To Sender
Don't Cry For Me Marge'n'Tina
Hell's Bells - AC/DC

For a cremation:

Light my Fire

Burn baby Burn

Smoke gets in your eyes.

Going Underground
Dance With The Devil
In The Lap Of The Gods

I am the resurrection

Cold Cold Ground - Tom Waits
I Am Going To Hell For This One - NOFX
Life'll Kill Ya - Warren Zevon
Delilah - Alex Harvey
My Death - Jacques Brell
O Death - Camer Van Beethoven
Adios - Rammstein
When I Leave The World Behind - Irving Berlin
Ghosts - Japan
O Death - Ralph Stanley
Long Black Limousine - Elvis Presley

Tam,

Thanks for posting the radio clip - quite agree!

For a cremation
Fire-Arthur Brown

Steve

I want John Holt - Ali baba or Simon and Garfunkel - Feeling Groovy.

I'd go for Mind to Give up Living (Butterfield BB) as openers, Water from an Ancient Well (Abdullah Ibrihaim) instead of a service, and closing with Theme from Local Hero - Going Home (M Knopfler)as it's raucus, uplifting and ends with a bang.

What ever you select, I'd advise you to pick a venue that has decent speakers. I went to a cremation in West London a few years back where there was an admirable musical selection played, Dylan & Steely Dan. Alas, it was so packed on the day, with most people standing outside, that the loudspeakers available were just not upto the job, and the whole impact was lost, a great pity.

quote:

Originally posted by munch:
Some one must start a thread CREM-DEMS .Does anyone no of any crems with a n/vi ? they all should have one with what they charge.munch

What's a CREM-DEM ?