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[Misc] Music for your wake …



A mex eyecan

Well-known member
Nov 3, 2011
3,669
So having spent the last 24 months dealing with Mum, Dad, Uncles and dear old Aunts, getting them safe and sound, sorting various care along with funerals I’ve decided that no matter what i do, including trying to halt time, my ultimate time up isn't going to be inevitable and I want to do and organise everything I can to make dealing with my possible senility, illness or just death as easy as possible for my children. The work in sorting other peoples affairs have shown me how important taking time to organise your affairs is for others peoples benefit.

So I’ve tried my hardest to get everything in order, filed and sorted so that should over the next 20 odd years (hopefully) should the aeroplane i fly in for my holidays decide to fall out if the sky, or that nasty No5 bus driver decide he didn’t see me crossing the road that when my time comes dealing with my funeral and personal affairs will be easier for my kids.

My wife and I have been and purchased a nice little plot for our ashes to be buried together in a wonderful natural burial site at the foot of the Sussex downs.

We’ve both written and listed our wishes for our funerals etc. I’ve listed 4 particular songs I want playing that mean an awful lot to me, and written a few brief words as to why I’ve chosen them. Ive found it surprising how incredibly emotional I have found putting my reasons into word.

The words to, and my interpretation of, first record always makes me stop, check, and really appreciate what a lucky man I am, to have met my wonderful wife when I was 17, she just 15. How she completely captivated and fascinated me, even at that time when I was some piss headed punk. After getting on for 50 plus years together, she still just amazes me (on the odd occasion coz I just can’t understand her). What a wife and mother she is. What fate or chance made me ‘see’ her across everyone else that night? The words to the song I didn’t appreciate until many years after, but If iI was ever to be so blessed to able to write a song to her then these would without doubt be them.

I‘m even now at a stage where I’ve started to make a playlist for around 2 hours worth of music that I just love which could be a back ground at any wake that may be organised.

Again with each song I’m listing ‘why’ I’ve chosen it. The music for me is proving to be easy yet there hundreds of records I love, reducing that lifetime list to a 2 hour playlist is very very hard indeed.

This whole process has made me really sit down and take stock of a great 65 plus odd years i’ve enjoyed, and hated, in this here planet. I never ever thought I was an emotional person, by by god facing up to all the issues time has thrown at me over the last 2 years has shown me that I am, and that it is something to embrace not be embarrassed by.

So, have any of you folks done, tried to do, done with ease, such a thing?

Im sure I know that I am in an incredibly reflective moment of life right now, Seeing old age all around you cannot do anything other than to influence and play havoc with your mindset, emotions and life summary thought processes.

Don‘t please list a summary of music, that’s so very very personal, just interested to see if I’m alone in this place or if others are there or maybe come out of the other side.
 




dazzer6666

Well-known member
NSC Patron
Mar 27, 2013
54,956
Burgess Hill
My dad loved music and left us with a few thoughts we’d discussed several times (he was on borrowed time for a few years). He went ‘through the curtains’ to ‘Great balls of fire’ - his favourite artist, my mum was horrified but the rest of us agreed it was so ‘him’ and his sense of humour. ‘Our Shangri Lah’ by Knopfler was his favourite song and we had that played for the ‘period of reflection’.

Me ? My kids already know it’s ‘Highway to hell’ when I go through the curtains.
 


A mex eyecan

Well-known member
Nov 3, 2011
3,669
Ha, ha, highway to hell, just briliiant . My songs are for me but also to try and show those I love so very deeply what they have meant to my life.

edit: must make a concerted effort to sit down and tell them all while we are all here
 
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AmexRuislip

Retired Spy 🕵️‍♂️
Feb 2, 2014
34,381
Ruislip
At my FIL funeral a few years back, one of his musical choices was the edited version of Always Look on the Bright Side of Life.
When the celebrant played the song, the unabridged version was played, all the amusement of the family.
 


The Clamp

Well-known member
NSC Patron
Jan 11, 2016
25,736
West is BEST
Always look on the bright side of life.

Highway to Hell

Etc

God help me if anyone plays this cliched bollocks that people think are somehow funny, at my funeral.
 




Jack Straw

I look nothing like him!
Jul 7, 2003
7,060
Brighton. NOT KEMPTOWN!
I thought I'd written that for a moment! I'm doing very similar to you, and incidentally, we're around the same age it seems? I think it's something that you do when you realise the Ref is checking his watch for full-time? I've just sorted out Health & Welfare, and Property & Finance LPA's for my two best friends who are both older than me, and one of them will be my attorney for both of mine.
I've gone through the "Swedish Death Cleaning Process", getting rid of everything I can, so that when the Ref blows his whistle, there's just the minimum for my kids to sort.
Updated my will, and made a list of all the people that I think need to be informed of my demise, along with their phone numbers, which I've given to my friend who is also the Executor of my will.
As you can't have your ashes spread on the Amex pitch, people know that I want to be scattered where we Guerrilla-scattered my Uncle's ashes a few months ago, within the footprint of the Amex grounds. We've unofficially adopted three "memorial" trees. If you're around the Amex, you may see my Uncle's flat-cap tied to one of them! It's easier to ask for forgiveness than permission.
Music-wise, the only track I've got sorted so far, is Signing Off, by UB40, as people leave the funeral building.
Once you're able to embrace the end-game, it's just a matter of getting those dearest to you to do the same, but that's not easy.
 












The Clamp

Well-known member
NSC Patron
Jan 11, 2016
25,736
West is BEST
I’ll have a few minutes of silent reflection followed by the Indiana Jones theme tune as I go through the curtain.

As for the wake? Who cares. Who’s listening to music at the wake?
 




The Clamp

Well-known member
NSC Patron
Jan 11, 2016
25,736
West is BEST
In all honesty I’m not bothered by any of the funeral stuff.

45 minutes of a few people waffling on about how lovely you were, in a conference room with a coffin in the corner before they shoo you out, ready for the next grieving mob.

I’d rather not have one. Genuinely.

Send me off to the furnace without the ceremony.
 


Zeberdi

“Vorsprung durch Technik”
NSC Patron
Oct 20, 2022
6,269
My wife and I have been and purchased a nice little plot for our ashes to be buried together in a wonderful natural burial site at the foot of the Sussex downs.
Is that the Woodland Trust at Clayton?

My Dad’s buried there (with a beech tree planted in memorium) and Mum will likely be there all too soon sadly. (His choice of music was Match of the Day and Fauré’s Requim and Nessun Dorma (which got everyone singing)


The whole family are down in Brighton in a few weeks so we’ll do a visit then across the road to the Jack and Jill pub for lunch.

For my funeral:

Freebird by Lynyrd Skynyrd is a must

 






BrightonCottager

Well-known member
Sep 30, 2013
2,584
Brighton
I'm in the process of clearing out my mum's house - she's now living with dementia in a care home. The last time I was putting some of her books into boxes for the charity shop or to keep. I found a hymnal and in the front she'd written 'Funeral' and the names of her favourite hymns and '[my name] to choose' . So that was her way of letting me know her wishes.
I've written a list of things I want for my funeral and wake which is with my will. It's got to reflect my loves and lusts in life (so Iggy Pop's 'Lust for Life' is on it).
 






loz

Well-known member
Apr 27, 2009
2,456
W.Sussex
My old mum who we buried last year had come on light my fire by The Doors as her final song, which surprised us and amused us , because frankly she had become a cantankerous in her later couple of years and it left us remembering she was actually a bit of a good fun girl when younger.
 




heathgate

Well-known member
NSC Patron
Apr 13, 2015
3,802
Theme tune to 'Once Upon a Time in the West' ... moody and emotional...
 


Han Solo

Well-known member
May 25, 2024
2,182
edit: Too personal
 
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