What Do You Want To Be Played At Your Funeral?

[Bob Sayers]

"He went to sleep and the hogs eat him
Now paw's gone forever."

(Stanley Bros.)

Bob

[futrconslr]

Wayfaring Stranger
Powr in the blood
are you afraid to die

[f5loar]

Being a musician for hire the local funeral homes know who to call for those authenitic ancient tones. Aside from the standards already mentioned I got an unusal request to play "Dixie" on the banjo as the casket was being lowered into the ground. I hope to have a full band send me off.

[LeoR]

My 16 year old son played Ashokan's Farewell solo at my father's funeral on a borrowed violin. He did a fine job and his Grandpa would have been proud.

That song touched everyone that day - time stood still.

I think I would want the same.

[drivenmandoman]

Blanche and Ellis Nichols were an older couple that lived in Indepence, VA and they opened up their kitchen to pickers(good, bad, new, or veteran) every Tue. night for years. I've seen people just learning their first chord to Carnegie Hall professionals all playing together. When Ellis died, Wayne Henderson (guitar) and Helen White (fiddle) played the Green River Waltz at the graveside. Most beautiful thing you ever heard.

I personally like "Swing Wide The Gate" .

[floyd floar]

I would like " Don't monkey with my widder" (Doc and Chet)

[John Ritchhart]

"What do you want to be played at your funeral?" I was thinking touch football. Boys against the girls.

[jeffshuniak]

i like you, jbrwky....thats great...:D ...

[acousticphd]

I want a $5-10 limit Hold-em poker game played at my funeral, with a $3/hand rake to pay for the expenses of sticking me in the ground on the cheap.

Ken, I will be there and chip in heavily, and I will also play something pretty for you on your Old Wave A5, which I'm imagining you will have left me in your will.

As for mine: Tim O'Brien playing "Bury me not on the lone Praire" on fiddle, then playing and singing "Keep your lamp trimmed and burning". Maybe Peter Ostrouschko's "Teelin Bay Waltz". Then lot's more music, and dancing.

This all sounds pretty fun - maybe I should be trying to live each day more as if I was at my own funeral...

[Jakykong]

No questions asked - something gospel. What i don't know yet. If i died tomorrow, probably not likely to be a folk/western song :-D (not why i took up the mando :-P actually mando's cause of tuning ... i love the GDAE tuning, same on the violin)
At least for the moment, i'm tuned in on classical and (oddly enough) new age or maybe soft rock...
But regardless of the genre (not that it really matters, i'm not in the coffin for the music :-P) definately something gospel.

[Dagger Gordon]

Weather's gotta be an issue for the graveside, as I don't want someone's nice fiddle or mandolin getting rained or snowed on. So as usual in Scotland, I would expect to be piped into my grave.

As I'm not religious, where my funeral would take place is a bigger issue for me than the music. I've been to a couple of humanist services, one of which featured a woman singing an unaccompanied version of 'Ae Fond Kiss' by Robert Burns. I have to admit, it was tremendously effective.

I don't think anyone has suggested having recordings of themselves playing to be played at their own funeral, but I actually think it would be good for people to listen to your music as they remember your life.

[Jim Yates]

My wife sang MY BUDDY at our friend Claire's funeral twenty years ago. A great funeral song.
Her brother has played FLOWERS OF THE FOREST at a few funerals.

[Joel Glassman]

"Its a Beautiful Morning" The Rascals

[flairbzzt]

Floyd- You took my song!

[violmando]

Have your heard Faure's Pavane played by the MMQ; that's my favorite piece--it's so peaceful, but I doubt it would be played that well at my funeral!

[Joe Parker]

"Please Don't Bury Me" by John Prine

JPP

[Pete Martin]

A fiddlin friend of mine passed away recently and we played at his funeral yesterday. One of the toughest things I've ever done. We played tunes he loved to play.

First tune we ever played together was Fishers HP. When we played it I almost couldn't make it through...

RIP Phil Goodwin, you were a good man, we will all miss you.

[Karen Kay]

Karen has asked for "You Can't Always Get What You Want" by the Stones. "Learning to Fly" by Pink Floyd is next.
RT

[siren_20]

"Last Goodbye" by Jeff Buckley
"Everything's Not Lost" by Coldplay
"Laurie de Tullins" by Chris Thile
"Django" by MJQ
"Hungaria" by Django and QHCF... end it on a happy, bouncy note.

About a year and a half ago I organized a memorial concert for a dear musician friend who had passed away. It was the hardest thing I'd ever done, getting that many musicians organized under such great strain in such a short period of time. Ultimately, the healing power of music shined through and everything fell into place as if guided by unseen hands. It was a fitting sendoff, all of us got up at the end and played a song that he'd wrote called Down Like Rain. I'll share the chorus with you:
"Down like rain, down like rain,
Your grace comes down like rain
Down like rain, down like rain,
Your grace comes down like rain."
It was a beautiful thing to be a part of. Not a day goes by I don't remember him, his music, and the lessons about musicianship that he taught me by living and loving through music.

[mandogrrl]

It's somewhat macabre, but I think about this fairly often.

I like: I'll Fly Away, Pilgrim by Steve Earle, Where the Soul of Man Never Dies played and sung by my mando teacher,
Crossing the Bar by Salamander Crossing.

Hopefully we will all have many more years to ponder this question.

[Dave Caulkins]

Heh, I don't think this is morbid - I actually think this is one of the best topics since I signed on this site years ago, the depth of this question is more than revealing... (maybe I'm morbid... hmmm?)

All I can say is:

No gospel.

No chestnuts.

No vocals.

To me, human life is too fragile and far too esoteric to be captured in words. I want my closest and dearest musicians (my wife included) to capture my life in simple notes. Improvise, damn you, like I made you do in life. Chop chop, slackers... heh! I don't want to go out on a downbeat note, particularly, just be remembered for who I was and wasn't. I don't know who I will be at my passing, but I can assume that I'm fairly consistent.

If I had to have words... I suppose "Goin' Down to Die" by Glenn Danzig is about as close as I could come right now (no, I don't want a metal band playing it... I want it acoustic with a frickin' mandolin...)... Yeah, I'm a weird mandolinist (just weird, actually)... Heck, I'm coming back to haunt everyone so what do I care (you clammed on the fourth measure... boo!)

Dave

PS: Tom Russell's "Ballad of Ed Abbey" is probably the most touching eulogy I have every heard put on a recording,... IMHO... He's been a personal hero to me for much of my existance...

[epicentre]

My wife and I both agreed no funeral. Cremation, then a memorial service (party). Very first tune I learned on the mando was St. Anne's Reel, so a good fiddler friend of mine will do that, and a piper buddy (late of the Argyles), has promised Amazing Grace.

My wife wants Blessed be the Tie that Binds since that was the hymn of her nursing school.

I told her I would like "Saints", but she said that would be just too much fun.....

[Jack Roberts]

Hymns. Old hymns. No guitar, no drums, no banjos, no mandolins, just hymns. And I would like to have "Nunc Dimitis" recited.

[yankees1]

Big Rock Candy Mountain, End of the Line ( Traveling Wilburys), I'll Fly Away, and I Did it My Way ( Sinatra). My funeral is all planned even with a video of me speaking to guests ( who I know will be there). More surprises but I won't tell !! A funeral that everyone will remember!

[Bill Bradshaw]

I'm insisting on Billy in the Low Ground. All my friends know they are supposed to play that one for sure. I bring it up pretty much at every jam.

Bill Bob Bradshaw