Your funeral might (hopefully!) be a long way off but, even if you’re not one of those people who believes in prepaying for funeral expenses, chances are that you might have made a few mental notes about songs to play at your final gathering of friends.
No, you won’t be able to hear them yourself, but by curating a playlist of music you hope represents some aspects of who you are, you can create a final musical statement to the people who care about you.
Choosing funeral songs sounds like a morbid way to spend an afternoon, but it’s something a growing number of people are thinking about – especially if certain songs have been a meaningful soundtrack to their life with family and friends. And if it’s not your own funeral, chances are you’ve been involved in the planning of someone else’s funeral.
Creating a perfect list of favourite funeral songs is personal and, depending on how rigid your musical tastes are, it’s something that can evolve with different moods, memories and exposure to new music.
Getting it right (or wrong) comes down to musical taste, sense of humour and whether you’re setting out to comfort or shock the guests at your service and wake. But if you’re someone who enjoys a bit of forward planning, there are some things worth considering before you make your final song selection.
Why are you making this playlist?
In a typical (traditional) funeral service, there’s room for four musical breaks
You need music to play as guests arrive (30 minutes will do it), a song (or maybe two, depending on the service) while the photo presentation plays, music to set the mood for a more sombre, gentle moment of reflection within the service (think prayers, communion, or any other spiritual or religious considerations), plus the swan song when the service ends.
By thinking about the ‘why’ behind your playlist, and whether or not the music will be an important focus, or merely background noise, you can then narrow it down to music that fits each moment best.
Location, location, location
If the funeral is being held in a church or funeral home chapel, you might feel tempted to adjust your song list and defer to hymns and classical pieces. But, really, shouldn’t the very best funeral songs be more about the person and the way they lived, than the place they happen to find themselves in when their life is over?
If you’re creating a playlist for your own funeral and you are someone who loves raising your voice in faith-filled song, traditional religious music will make perfect sense. But if you’re more of a drums and bass person, trust your instincts and stick with the dubstep. And if the gathering doesn’t appreciate it, it’s not like you’ll have to endure their complaints. This is your party, after all.
Respecting the wishes of the dead
But if you’re creating someone else’s funeral playlist, it’s time to think about them and not your own tastes. As galling as it may be for you to feature Leo Sayer, or Adele, it’s not your call to curate it with your own personal flavour.
If there are no formal instructions for you to follow about the type of music they wanted played at their funeral, take a moment to think of who they were, flick through their record collection if you’re able to, and be guided by their personality and tastes, not your own.
Choosing the perfect funeral songs
Kimba Griffith is co-founder of The Last Hurrah – a company that brands itself as offering “authentic and unique funerals”.
Ask her about the best songs to pay at a funeral and you can almost hear her eyes roll as she tells you the songs she wishes would be given their own final farewell.
Her top tip when it comes to choosing your own funeral playlist, though, is to document it – but not in your will.
“Don’t put the songs you want played at your funeral in your will because sometimes that can be missed” she says. “Nobody wants to be that person who is looking at the will the second you’ve died.”
And, she says, “tell more than one person”.
Pan pipes, be gone
Music is personal, says Ms Griffith. Honouring that truth can make for musical choices that might be seen as awkward by some guests, but, she adds, that doesn’t matter.
“It’s about the person having the funeral,” she says. “We had one man whose funeral was on what was meant to be his wedding day. There was a 10-minute dance break in the middle of the wake so all the guests who should have been enjoying themselves at his wedding could just dance. It was perfect for him.”
Another tip?
“No bloody pan pipes,” she says.
Classical music selections, generally, Ms Griffith warns, can be difficult. “The highs and lows are tough because classical music is rarely just one mood the whole way through.”
The best songs at a funeral, she says, creates “a vibe that suits the person”.
The way The Last Hurrah runs wakes, she says, there are plenty of opportunities for music. Pre-ceremony, opening song, closing song, two songs for the photo presentation … and even more if music was instrumental in someone’s life.
In her time as a funeral director, she’s heard a bit of everything, with evergreen classics, such as The Beatles singing In My Life, and Leaving on a Jet Plane still popular.
She’s not a fan of Tears in Heaven, although she admits it has a way of “killing everyone”.
“But you’re already sad when someone’s died, so why play the world’s saddest song? Sometimes it’s better to lift the mood and put a smile on people’s faces,” she says.
A memorable moment from a recent wake, she says, was hearing Gloria Gaynor belt out I Will Survive, and another was when the opening song was Bob Dylan’s Rainy Day Woman, with its rollicking reminder that ‘everybody must get stoned’.
“The original version of Spirit in the Sky is another good one,” she says. “But one of my personal favourites is by Jason Isbell, If We Were Vampires – ‘Maybe we’ll get 40 years together, but one day I’ll be gone’.”
Have you created your own funeral playlist? What funeral song packs the biggest emotional punch for you? What funeral songs do you wish you never heard again? Share your experiences in the comments below.
Read more: This funeral tech startup has reinvented memorials
I won’t be having a funeral, YAY! Waste of money. My parents didn’t. We had a family and friends afternoon tea for Mum, and a close family silver service dinner for Dad. They had lovely white shiny cardboard coffins on which the grandchildren drew pictures with textas, so no songs.