Here’s an interesting article about the Brits, many of whom prefer "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life," the Monty Python song, for their funerals. My probably unrealistic (and not morally binding) vision of my funeral is to forbid any tributes or even spoken words but make everyone sit through Brahms’s Ein Deutsches Requiem (Kempe or Klemperer versions, about 79 minutes long) and then simply close the event and send everybody home.
Whether this is an aesthetic preference, or whether I don’t want to let them talk themselves out of weeping over my death, I am not sure.
I don’t really care much about the music that’s played at the funeral. I did, however, put a rather large sum into my will for parties. I want people to remember me for “hosting” the best party of their lives.
I would like to have my funeral close with Bach’s Sleepers Awake.
Lawrence Welk’s version of the Pennsylvania Polka.
If I would have my funeral Tyler’s way I would choose the Agnus Die of
the Missa Solemnis.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=pvAM3mR4DGQ&feature=related
Tyler,
I would like to report two strange coincidences. Firstly, that I had a similar conversation with a friend recently. Secondly that I ended up requesting the same piece at my own hypothetical funeral. Brahms’s Requiem is one of the greatest achievements of his legendary career and certainly of the Requiem form. It would already have been normatively jolting for simply adopting Lutheran text but by intentionally adopting a decidedly universalist humanist interpretation of death and suffering, I believe it becomes revolutionary. The Requiem serves as a watershed moment in the history of Western music and more generally European culture.
Fantastic choice, though I have to ask… what is your favorite movement?
I plan to insist upon a reading from the King James version of the Bible. I’m told it’s inaccurate as a translation (especially from the Hebrew), but it’s English at its best.
I’ve always thought James McMurtry’s “Stancliff’s Lament” would be spine-tingling for a funeral.
Chug, I am Irish (mostly)…
My selection:
Mahler Symphony No. 2… the Resurrection.
The lyrics of John Prine are even better with the tune, but here they are
anyway:
Woke up this morning
Put on my slippers
Walked in the kitchen and died
And oh what a feeling!
When my soul
Went thru the ceiling
And on up into heaven I did ride
When I got there they did say
John, it happened this way
You slipped upon the floor
And hit your head
And all the angels say
Just before you passed away
These were the very last words
That you said:
Chorus:
Please don’t bury me
Down in that cold cold ground
No, I’d druther have “em” cut me up
And pass me all around
Throw my brain in a hurricane
And the blind can have my eyes
And the deaf can take both of my ears
If they don’t mind the size
Give my stomach to Milwaukee
If they run out of beer
Put my socks in a cedar box
Just get “em” out of here
Venus de Milo can have my arms
Look out! I’ve got your nose
Sell my heart to the junkman
And give my love to Rose
Repeat Chorus
Give my feet to the footloose
Careless, fancy free
Give my knees to the needy
Don’t pull that stuff on me
Hand me down my walking cane
It’s a sin to tell a lie
Send my mouth way down south
And kiss my ass goodbye
For all the Requiems that are being bandied about, I’m surprised no one has insisted on Fauré’s. A masterpiece!
A friend of mine insists that, should he meet an untimely end, his funeral music will be “My Boyfriend’s Back” by The Angels.
I actually discovered the song I want played at my funeral last week: “‘Tis the Last Rose of Summer,” performed on the trumpet as heard of Wynton Marsalis’ Classic Wynton.
This hymn was sung at the funÂerÂal of AmerÂiÂcan preÂsiÂdent Dwight EiÂsenÂhowÂer at the NaÂtionÂal CaÂthedÂral in WashÂingÂton, DC, March 1969 (and also, among many others no doubt, at the funeral of my dearly departed Uncle Bill):
A mighty fortress is our God, a bulwark never failing;
Our helper He, amid the flood of mortal ills prevailing:
For still our ancient foe doth seek to work us woe;
His craft and power are great, and, armed with cruel hate,
On earth is not his equal.
Did we in our own strength confide, our striving would be losing;
Were not the right Man on our side, the Man of God’s own choosing:
Dost ask who that may be? Christ Jesus, it is He;
Lord Sabaoth, His Name, from age to age the same,
And He must win the battle.
And though this world, with devils filled, should threaten to undo us,
We will not fear, for God hath willed His truth to triumph through us:
The Prince of Darkness grim, we tremble not for him;
His rage we can endure, for lo, his doom is sure,
One little word shall fell him.
That word above all earthly powers, no thanks to them, abideth;
The Spirit and the gifts are ours through Him Who with us sideth:
Let goods and kindred go, this mortal life also;
The body they may kill: God’s truth abideth still,
His kingdom is forever.
How about Victoria’s Requiem or, in fact, his entire Officium Defunctorum? Verdi, Faure, and various others are great, but nothing beats Victoria.
Tyler’s preference is pure consideration for others. He is sparing them the ordeal of finding ways to not speak evil of the lately departed.
Queen’s “Who Wants to Live Forever.”
Charles Tillinghast wins.
Oooooo, I forgot to mention Cowboy Junkies “Those Final Feet”!
I submit that anyone who has to be forced to sit through the German requiem is defective.
Well I’m choosing a Monty Python song but not Bright side of life. I’m using The Galaxy Song simply for the line “And pray that there’s intelligent life somwhere up in space cause there’s bugger all down here on earth.” I just don’t want people to remember me for my death I want them to remember me for happy times so I picked that song (and also because I love studying Astronomy =]).
Take a listen to a song I recorded called “You’re Near”
Take a listen to a song I recorded called “You’re Near”
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