I want this song at my funeral. This version of the song, I mean: this exact one. K?
While I’m on the subject it seems prudent to list all the songs I want at my funeral, given that I tend to forget and tell different people different things. Only, um, I forget the rest. I wanted Into the West for a while after ROTK came out, but that’s kinda passe now: and one wouldn’t want people snorting cynically and rolling their eyes as my lifeless corpus was wheeled down the aisle. (I still have a sneaking yen for “White shores” being engraved on my tombstone, though. What do you think? Too much?) There are plenty of hymns I like, but I’m not sure whether any of them are particularly funeral-friendly. “To be a pilgrim”, perhaps.
If I had real chutzpah, I’d request ‘Requiem for Evita’, just to make people nervy. And if I were a meaner man than I am I’d choose a piece of music from, say, Sense and Sensibility, which my mother tentatively describes as her favourite film, just so every time she watched it she’d think of me and come over all wibbly. Although we had the Star Wars theme song at our wedding and I can still hear that without thinking of the fateful day…. I guess it simply has stronger associations. Which would be an interesting psychological test for my mother. Which had a stronger claim on her memory: her own dead daughter or a cracking Jane Austen adaptation starring Emma Thompson? Then again, I wouldn’t be around to assess the results. Probably a good thing, too: Emma Thompson is smashing.
On a related note, if anyone ever dies in a manner which associates The Princess Bride, Breakfast at Tiffany’s or of course Star Wars in my mind with said death, there will be hell to pay. Please keep this in mind before taking up any extreme sports or ingesting trans fats, OK? If I’m right in the middle of “My hands are dirty.” “My hands are dirty too” and the phone rings saying they found your body in a desolate field mauled by raptors, I will be very put out. Just sayin’.
Anyway, it seems I could use some suggestions. Funeral songs. Hit me with your best. And do you feel the final coffin procession should be accompanied by a slow and weepy tune, or something rollicking and upbeat as if to say “Hah! I boogie in the face of death!”? I’ve been to both and am unsure.
Miriam Says: