Your memorial service playlist

[daveman]

What do you want played at your memorial service?

The music we love says a great deal about us.

This one always gives me goosebumps -- Annie Lennox from the Lord of the Rings: Return of the King sountrack, "Into the West":

Lay down
Your sweet and weary head
Night is falling
You've come to journey's end
Sleep now
And dream of the ones who came before
They are calling
From across the distant shore

Why do you weep?
What are these tears upon your face?
Soon you will see
All of your fears will pass away
Safe in my arms
You're only sleeping

[Chorus]
What can you see
On the horizon?
Why do the white gulls call?
Across the sea
A pale moon rises
The ships have come to carry you home

And all will turn
To silver glass
A light on the water
All souls pass

Hope fades
Into the world of night
Through shadows falling
Out of memory and time
Don't say "We have come now to the end"
White shores are calling
You and I will meet again

And you'll be here in my arms
Just sleeping

[Chorus]

And all will turn
To silver glass
A light on the water
Grey ships pass
Into the West

[Adam]

I flatly refuse to have a boring, tear-jerking funeral. When I take the last ride in the wooden Buick, it better be a party. Like, open-bar party.



I'd love to have a piper play Amazing Grace. Then the Battle Hymn of the Republic.

Then I want whoever is delivering my eulogy to literally put a galvanized 2-gallon bucket in front of my plain, pine-box casket and literally kick it across the funeral home.


Then, everyone can jam out to some Eric Johnson:

Then, the hearse can head out to Edwin Warner Park, starting out with a soundtrack of "Slow Ride:"

Ideally, this should be blared quite loudly from loudspeakers atop the hearse.



Then, once my pallbearers have placed me in the middle of the large field at the end of Belle Meade Boulevard, I want enough C-4 put underneath my casket to make sure that there will be nothing left but a pink mist, and, timed to the cannon crescendo of the Nashville Symphony's rendition of the 1812 Overture, blow my ass to smithereens.





No, I'm actually not kidding. By the time the funeral comes along, I will long since have met my Maker. What's left behind is meat. Please take as much as possible in organs if they can help someone else, and then get rid of me. Everyone else should have a big-ass party out of it. Everyone says "I want people to celebrate my life;" well, I'm serious about it. Throw a big rock-n-roll party in my honor. Pay homage to the life lost, pray for my immortal soul, but for God's sake (literally), go have some damn fun, hoist one, and dance/party/howl/mosh/whatever and have some fun.

[daveman]

Sounds like you haven't given this much thought, Adam. Perhaps you need to reflect a while.

This is on my playlist. If you can't get a live piper, this one's good -- and public domain. It's the Command Band of the US Air Force Reserves:

http://www.music.af.mil/shared/media/document/AFD-060313-048.mp3

[Hondo]

So many I would like, but these few will absolutely be played. I've already told my family - didn't want to risk having The Bangles, or R.E.M. or some stupid shit like that played over me. I probably should go through the hassle of burning a CD of it just to be sure.


Starting with Gortoz A Ran.

Then something Irish from The High Kings

Then I figured to speed things up some with "10 Million Slaves" from Otis Taylor's "Respect the Dead"

Black 47's "James Connolly"

The Pogues "If I Should Fall From Grace With God"

The Legend, Levon Helm, with "When I Go Away"

And finally Flogging Molly with "The Likes of You Again." That should get them up and dancing. Dance, monkeys, dance.

[Adam]

So many I would like, but these few will absolutely be played. I've already told my family - didn't want to risk having The Bangles, or R.E.M. or some stupid shit like that played over me. I probably should go through the hassle of burning a CD of it just to be sure.

Actually, now that I think about it, there's a certain poetic symmetry to having "Walk Like an Egyptian" played at a funeral....

[Hondo]

Actually, now that I think about it, there's a certain poetic symmetry to having "Walk Like an Egyptian" played at a funeral....

Way to go, you just got uninvited to my wake....

[scott]

I honestly don't care. The funeral is for the folks I left behind, not me. Of course there will be laughter, my favorite drink in my honor, and a Marine Color Guard - it's what my family and friends will want.

[Adam]

I honestly don't care. The funeral is for the folks I left behind, not me. Of course there will be laughter, my favorite drink in my honor, and a Marine Color Guard - it's what my family and friends will want.

That's precisely why I insist that it be a party instead of some cry-fest (or perhaps a "piss-on-his-grave-fest").

[Lanie]

Amazing Grace. Simple and common, but I really like it. I'd like the whole song sang as a reminder to people that they can have it.

Other than that, I'd like some happy music. Since I love chocolate so much, I'd like everybody to have some. While the funeral is for my family and friends and not for me, I will come down there and make my eyes open and my fingers twitch if somebody walks in with a camera. Actually, I'd prefer no viewing, but I'll leave that up to those left behind.

[Billy Jingo]

Oh all the money that e'er I spent
I spent it in good company
And all the harm that e'er I've done
Alas, it was to none but me
And all I've done for want of wit
To memory now I can't recall
So fill to me the parting glass
Good night and joy be with you all

Oh all the comrades that e'er I've had
Are sorry for my going away
And all the sweethearts that e'er I've had
Would wish me one more day to stay
But since it falls unto my lot
That I should rise and you should not
I'll gently rise and I'll softly call
Good night and joy be with you all

[Ree_]

I don't want a funeral, I want a wake. Prop my arse up in some corner, and party the weekend away. Wasn't that a movie? I'd like someone to drink a toast to me and say somethin nice(if they can think of anything) ust don't let the undertaker put that clown makeup on me. And bury me in my favorite pair of boots.

[Lanie]

I don't want a funeral, I want a wake. Prop my arse up in some corner, and party the weekend away. Wasn't that a movie? I'd like someone to drink a toast to me and say somethin nice(if they can think of anything) ust don't let the undertaker put that clown makeup on me. And bury me in my favorite pair of boots.

Off the subject, just want to say that you look good.

[phillygirl]

Oh all the money that e'er I spent
I spent it in good company
And all the harm that e'er I've done
Alas, it was to none but me
And all I've done for want of wit
To memory now I can't recall
So fill to me the parting glass
Good night and joy be with you all

Oh all the comrades that e'er I've had
Are sorry for my going away
And all the sweethearts that e'er I've had
Would wish me one more day to stay
But since it falls unto my lot
That I should rise and you should not
I'll gently rise and I'll softly call
Good night and joy be with you all

This song is awesome. I think I'll use it for the memorial video this year. I just don't know whose cover of it to use yet.

[Billy Jingo]

This song is awesome. I think I'll use it for the memorial video this year. I just don't know whose cover of it to use yet.

Another one I would like.

There are stars
In the Southern sky
Southward as you go
There is moonlight
And moss in the trees
Down the Seven Bridges Road

Now I have loved you like a baby
Like some lonesome child
And I have loved you in a tame way
And I have loved you wild

Sometimes there's a part of me
Has to turn from here and go
Running like a child from these warm stars
Down the Seven Bridges Road

There are stars in the Southern sky
And if ever you decide
You should go
There is a taste of thyme sweetened honey
Down the Seven Bridges Road

[Billy Jingo]

That's when Wendell Gee takes a tug
Upon the string that held the line of trees
Behind the house he lived in
He was reared to give respect
But somewhere down the line he chose
To whistle as the wind blows
Whistle as the wind blows with me

He had a dream one night
That the tree had lost its middle
So he built a trunk of chicken wire
To try to hold it up
But the wire, the wire turned to lizard skin
And when he climbed inside
There wasn't even time to say
Goodbye to Wendell Gee
So whistle as the wind blows
Whistle as the wind blows with me

There wasn't even time to say
Goodbye to Wendell Gee
So whistle as the wind blows
Whistle as the wind blows with me
If the wind were colors
And if the air could speak
Then whistle as the wind blows
Whistle as the wind blows