The OFFICIAL Unofficial Achewood Message Board
Trivial Pursuits => Arts & Entertainment => Topic started by: Skillator on August 04, 2006, 06:29:03 pm
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I am always disappointed with people's cliche use of U2 and Candle in the Wind at funerals. You would think people would have a little more respect for the dead. Personally, I want to have made the selections myself. I want each and every one to be a biting and meaningful tribute to my existence. If I hear Bono's voice as I'm ascending the Stairway to Heaven, I am coming back and haunting everyone.
I've been rolling this around in my head, but I still have very few ideas. I think I need to hear what other people have in mind.
So what I want to know from you: what will be the soundtrack to your funeral?
GO!
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The Jam - Going Underground.
Preferably as the coffin is being lowered.
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Nico's "These Days" sung by Heidi Klum
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Nico's "These Days" sung by Heidi Klum
Wait when how – did that actually happen? Or is it one heck of a brilliant audio-visual fantasy?
edit: Right, about my funeral… "Tears" by The Chameleons. Pretty obvious title, I know, but wonderful song.
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"To Be of Use" by Smog
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Am I really the first to say it?
Europe's "The Final Countdown"
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Heaven by Talking Heads is also a good one!
Heaven... Heaven is the place
A place where nothing, nothing ever happens
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I must be a fortunate person, because I had no idea there were annoying musical cliches at funerals.
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In no particular order:
"Don't Even Sing About It" - The Books ("You get used to hangin' if you hang long enough")
"Three Peaches" - Neutral Milk Hotel (for the irony in the line "I'm so happy that you didn't die," and because it's an awesome song)
"How to Disappear Completely" - Radiohead (lyrics here (http://www.greenplastic.com/lyrics/howtodisappear.php))
"Passing Afternoon" - Iron & Wine ("There are things that drift away / Like our endless, numbered days")
"Cody" - Mogwai ("Sad songs remind me of friends")
Other possibilities (for the after-party?):
"Suicide My Star" - God Is an Astronaut
"I Don't Want to Live (in a World of Infinite Keys)" - Ester Drang
"Oh Comely" - Neutral Milk Hotel
"Break Me Gently" - Doves
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"Another Man's Done Gone," Wilco/Billy Bragg.
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Radiohead's "Pyramid Song" would be a good one too, as would Rick James' "Ghetto Life."
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The instrumentals of "Jive Talkin'", played in a loop. Alternately, a regular quiet funeral with nice weather.
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yeah, I don't really imagine any edgy or interesting music at my funeral.
my funeral will basically be me, either in a box or on fire. dead.
hopefully a few people will cry, but not too much. wouldn't want to upset anyone, no sir.
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John Rutter's Requiem, with a chamber orchestra (piano, flute, violin, harp, timpani, trumpet, and oboe) plus organ and a choir of thirty young adults no older than 23.
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Alternately, a regular quiet funeral with nice weather.
This is the best idea so far.
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I don't have anything for mine but my mother has always demanded hell of Van Morrison at hers (Particularly 'Bright side of the road'). I think this goes towards cliche but when the time comes I guess I'll have to go with it. Dress blues brothers style.
The only plans I ever had for my funeral was I told people I wanted them to wear fancy dress. Then a friend of mine said she would come as whatever I died of, I couldn't decide whether this was brilliant or horrible so I stopped telling people.
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Either "First of the Month" or "Thuggish Ruggish Bone". And I'd be buried in a leopard print overcoat and a dapper purple hat in a glass, diamond-studded coffin.
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The best choice for a funeral song is "If You Don't Know Me By Now" by Simply Red. Because if you don't, you never ever will. I can imagine the looks on everyone's faces as the first few notes play and the mourners slowly realize that they know the song, and I hope some people laugh.
ALSO:
"The Funeral" by Band of Horses.
"At Your Funeral" by Saves The Day
"At The End of The Tour" by TMBG
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I totally laughed at that one. Yes, that first line oughta elicit a few chuckles from the more savvy of mourners.
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"At Your Funeral" by Saves The Day
I wanted to include that song, but I was afraid it would reveal my shameful emo past. But now that I'm posting about it anyway, I guess I have nothing to worry about!
The saddest part is that it's not such a bad song.
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Nobody's going to nominate "Dead" by TMBG? I mean, ome on, how much more perfect can you get?
Alternate, serious suggestions: "Sweetness Follows" and "Endgame" by R.E.M. always struck me as good funeral music. I might also have to go with "Casimir Pulaski Day" by Sufjan, just because it's the song I associate with death these days.
A quiet funeral could be okay too. I mean, hell, it's not for me, why should I be choosing music? (Aside from "if my SO chooses it it will all be '80's pop and/or prog.")
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What would be really nice as a sweet yet semi-ironic funeral soundtrack: the Happy Gilmore theme tune.
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Hm... I always thought Sigur Ros would be nice...
Most likely I wouldn't really like a funeral.. just a cremation and sent off flying.. perhaps people could celebrate while eating pastries and listening to a soundtrack later. hah.
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My grandmother's funeral was mostly old people singing all six verses of Amazing Grace. C- for performance and lack of originality.
Of course, the first thing that popped into my head was a string quartet and harp playing "Dust in the wind," so I guess I'm not very original either. Perhaps they could also play "Another one bites the dust" to really make people uncomfortable.
I should think about this some more. Do I want sappy or uncomfortably inappropriate?
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My grandmother's funeral was mostly old people singing all six verses of Amazing Grace. C- for performance and lack of originality.
My grandmother's funeral was mostly hymns, but it also featured my aunt playing the theme from The Thorn Birds on the flute. This made me happy to no end because a) Grandma loved that miniseries, and it was good to be reminded of that kind of thing during a very solemn time; b) the theme itself was actually quite pretty; and c) had the priest known what Aunt Nancy was playing, he would have shit a brick and died, and I think that irreverence would have made Grandma happy, too.
Moral of the story: go for creativity.
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"Another one bites the dust" to really make people uncomfortable.
Brilliance!
And of course uncomfortable should always be the goal, people can feel sappy all by themselves but a funeral is really your last chance to mess with people EVER. Besides, folk who know you should dig it.
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OK, I may not have a soundtrack for my funeral, but I've finally had a vision of what my afterlife will be like.
From http://www.nicecupofteaandasitdown.com/ (http://www.nicecupofteaandasitdown.com/):
100 year old ghost wants tea, cake and occaisonally biscuits
Tuesday 18 Jul 2006 Reporter: Nicey
The BBC have an interesting article about a ghost of an English soldier in a village in northern India who stops the locals in the street and asks for tea, cake, and occasionally biscuits. The grave of Owen Tomkinson who died in 1906 is regularly visited by locals who bring home made cakes and pots of tea in an attempt to pacify the restless soul.
Attempts to chain the ghost to a nearby iron pillars with 'devine' chains were briefly successful until somebody took the chains.
The ghost of Mr Tomkinson is smartly dressed and well mannered and considered harmless. Even if locals don't have any tea and cakes on them when meeting the ghost he'll leave you alone if you promise to get some for him on another day.
Unfortunately the article fails to say what types of tea, cake and biscuits the locals have been trying, which may be where they are going wrong.
The only difference is that I will definitely also be asking for ice cream.
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did anyone see that ad, back in the day? where the fellows are listening to "another one bites the dust," and then it zooms out and they're in a hearse? during a funeral procession? that ad was pretty awesome.
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I'd go with something from "Soft Bulletin". Most of that album is a "Life is completely tragic and sad, but there's a beauty to that" that ends up being kind of uplifting.
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I will let my family decide since, you know, funerals are for the living.
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did anyone see that ad, back in the day? where the fellows are listening to "another one bites the dust," and then it zooms out and they're in a hearse? during a funeral procession? that ad was pretty awesome.
Another weird funeral-related commercial, for the hell of it: Does anyone remember the one in which there is an attractive, dark-haired lady in a bright red dress and big swanky sunglasses, and she is walking behind a hearse procession? The message of the commercial was something along the lines of "Be different!", but her get-up and strut always struck me as disrespectful and tactless. Sure, be different, stand out and all that, but not at a damn funeral.
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no, no! it was the joy of being alive! defiance in the face of death!
I love that we both reacted like that to that commercial. I definitely spent like a month telling everyone how racist that commercial was, only to see it again and realize that I was completely misunderstanding one of the segments.
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did anyone see that ad, back in the day? where the fellows are listening to "another one bites the dust," and then it zooms out and they're in a hearse? during a funeral procession? that ad was pretty awesome.
That Aiwa commercial was possibly the best ad ever. Compared to this spot the Mac 1984 ad sucks ass. They also had one at the same time where a guys weird mohawky haircut acted like a VU meter.
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I'd like a live band. Maybe use my urn as a percussion instrument.
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Anything with Laibach, since, you know, they turn any 80's song into a viking funeral anyway. And then my coffin will be used by six burly pallbearers as a battering ram to knock down the doors of the building in which the mourners are assembled; at a full run they charge forth holding the coffin and pitch it into a roiling pit of fire while "Mars, Bringer of War" plays madly in the background.
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Anything with Laibach, since, you know, they turn any 80's song into a viking funeral anyway.
I may have underexplored the possibilities of the Laibach cover of "Jesus Christ Superstar" as a funeral song. It's sufficiently heavy and Teutonic that you can almost ignore the inanity of the lyrics!
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The Shining by Badly Drawn Boy would probably go on the list, In Metal by Low would probably follow, Hoppipolla by Sigur Rós would come after that and there'd be a mixture of Iron & Wine, The Mountain Goats, Rufus Wainwright, Simon & Garfunkel and Peter Salett. People should dance at my funeral. I definitely would, if I wasn't dead..
I'd probably use some Bonnie Prince Billy aswell. Wilco too....
Jeez, that'll be a long funeral.
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Okay, I've decided. Tuesday, you can stay.
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Dude, it was totally the Rufus Wainwright - I was already sold by that point, then the Simon & Garfunkel sweetened the deal, and then this pushed me over the edge:
People should dance at my funeral. I definitely would, if I wasn't dead.
I will totally be dancing when you die, Tuesday.
Wait, that didn't come out right...
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Do you think Rufus's full first name was Rohypnus?
Also, I would probably have Morricone score my funeral.
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Oddly enough I just picked up a cd of sea shanty's with Rufus Rainwight track. Pretty good but Baby Gramps' track is better.
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dude, are you trying to make Q cry? he straight-up loves sea shanties.
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Jeez, that'll be a long funeral.
I'll stick around for the music.
What, no Stairway to Heaven?
~Paul
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What, no Stairway to Heaven?
Song battle between stairway to heaven and highway to hell!
Inev: I can see why, these things are awesome. Simultaneously sentimental and dirty.
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Also, sea shanties sound even better and are even easier to sing the more drunk the singing group is. It's like analog karaoke!
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I think what music I'd have depends on who's going. As I'd want a short funeral, and if I liked who was coming, I'd have a string sextet play Strauss's Capriccio Prelude.
However, if I was rich and famous and knew my funeral was going to be attended by tons of public dignitaries, I'd put on music I love but most people would hate: Varese's Deserts, Boulez's Book for Strings, Penderecki's Threnody and Schnittke's Viola Concerto.
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But enough about us- how did people in England feel (http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20061003/od_nm/britain_funerals1_dc;_ylt=AnxiEtKCiL68UnM3acTx1Rms0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTA3NW1oMDRpBHNlYwM3NTc-)?
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Others in the top 20 included (...) perhaps unexpectedly, Fame's "I Want To Live Forever."
9 - "Every Breath You Take - The Police
Proof positive that people don't freaking listen to lyrics or understand dramatic irony. (Hint to the British public: "I'm Gonna Live Forever," in the context of eventual death, is fundamentally a song about tragic hubris, and "Every Breath You Take" is a song about stalking.)
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Perhaps the country is full of arrogant stalkers? I dunno. Can anyone confirm this?
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'Every breath you take' has always confused me because it is so obviously a creepy stalker song so I could never figure out it's popularity I just assumed there was probably some context I was missing.
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These are the same people that used to want The One I Love played as a dedication.
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These are the same people that used to want The One I Love played as a dedication.
Well, as a dedication for a simple prop to occupy your time, there are worse songs.
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Perhaps the country is full of arrogant stalkers? I dunno. Can anyone confirm this?
I think there's still a greater proportion of idiots here than there are arrogant stalkers.
Otherwise I might have more friends...
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I think that the arrogance is pretty much par for everyone's course these days. For example, most traditional church funerals have strict controls. For example, when a good friend of mine's son died unexpectedly, I was there when they were planning the funeral. My best friend who has an amazing voice was going to sing the prelude, but for the Catholic ceremony there were only a few choices of songs that they could pick. Like, they had a choice between 2 hymns or something. I was surprised that there was so little freedom of choice, but then again we are talking about the Catholic church (heh, awesome pun). They have this thing where they want to keep the focus on God, I guess.
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Dies Irae-- what a great way of consoling the grieving mourners.