Funeral Songs

"So, what songs would you have at your funeral?"The Long Suffering Husband was eyeing me suspiciously from the other side of the sofa, "I know!" he said, "It would be, 'Always look on the bright side of life,' or 'Don't worry, be happy."

It could be an important question but I was surprised, as he has always insisted that he is going to die first, probably from a badminton or getting out of the car kind of accident. So, I checked my brakes before setting off today.

I didn't tell him that I have a playlist on my computer called "Julia's Funeral." I don't know when I did it but even I think it's a weird thing to have done.  I checked it today and it does have both of his suggestions in.

Hospital radio is a little bit like a collective funeral playlist.  There were some great tunes on today.  They go around and ask each patient for their request on a Monday and that becomes the week's playlist.  There were all the old favourites: The Rose, Angels, Wind Beneath My Wings, You Raise Me Up, True Colours, Unforgettable, We'll Meet Again, Stairway To Heaven.  There were the less obvious but beautiful songs like Every Time We Say Goodbye by Cole Porter, Humans and the brilliant Sarah Vaughan singing I Cried For You. There was loads of show tunes and Disney.
Dad told me that he'd requested Too Much Too Little Too Late by Johnny Mathis and Deniece Williams.

One of my flute pupils is learning Smoke Gets in Your Eyes and I suggested that it would be a good tune for a funeral.
She was horrified, "You couldn't.  Not for a cremation. 'When your heart's on fire, smoke gets in your eyes.'  It would be wrong.  Just wrong."

A friend told me about her grandfather's funeral and how her actress aunt had offered to sing one of the songs from her show.  The family gave each other sideways looks, wondering who was going to ask which particular song she was going to sing.  They were ticking them off in their heads: Something Bad, Popular, One Short Day, I'm Not That Girl, No Good Dead, For Good, A Sentimental Man, Thank Goodness, Defying Gravity.
"Oh, not Wicked, the other show," she said when she fell in.  You might have heard the sigh from wherever you were.

Possibly, most of the tunes on my playlist are what people might consider inappropriate.  I have Another One Bites The Dust, Ding Dong The Witch Is Dead, The Vicar of Dibley theme tune, Cold As Ice (by Foreigner) and the work song from Les Miserables, "Look down, look down, your feet are in your grave."  I'm thinking of adding the Countdown theme tune, which would be perfect as the curtains close on the coffin.  However, I will change the label of the playlist to read in brackets, "this is a joke, choose whatever songs you like."