The Good Funeral Guide

A little while ago I had a debate with Jonathan Taylor within this blog about funeral music. I have no interest in music, I said, can think of nothing that would describe me or sum me up, want nothing. I prefer spoken words. Jonathan then had one of those moments of heady inspiration, the greatest attraction of this otherwise rather plodding blog and the reason why you all come to it, and suggested I have the shipping forecast. If you don’t know it, it’s on Radio 4 dead early in the morning at again shortly after midnight. It is meaningless to a landlubber but the words make their own music:

Low, Rockall, 987, deepening rapidly, expected Fair Isle 964 by 0700 tomorrow.

Bliss!

I have thought about Jonathan’s suggestion. I love it. I want the version above, read by the great Brian Perkins, please!

And while we’re in weekend mood, here’s the face of Christ on a Marmite lid.

Here’s a seasonal number (with apologies to US  and Scotch readers, to whom cricket probably makes no sort of sense at all). This is the song that DJ John Peel agreed with his producer, John Walters, would be played on the radio when he died. It didn’t happen. Walters died three years before (Peel played the song for him), but no one living was immediately aware of the request when Peel died. Andy Kershaw made up for the oversight in his Radio 3 tribute to Peel; he played it at the end. Lovely melancholy, elegiac brass band sounds to relish here.

Its mood resonates with these well-known lines of the enthusiastic opium eater Francis Thompson:

For the field is full of shades as I near a shadowy coast,

And a ghostly batsman plays to the bowling of a ghost,

And I look through my tears on a soundless-clapping host

As the run stealers flicker to and fro,

To and fro:

O my Hornby and my Barlow long ago !

When an Old Cricketer Leaves the Crease

When the day is done, and the ball has spun, in the umpire’s pocket away
And all remains, in the groundsman’s pains for the rest of time and a day
There’ll be one mad dog and his master, pushing for four with the spin
On a dusty pitch, with two pounds six of willow wood in the sun

When an old cricketer leaves the crease, you never know whether he’s gone
If sometimes you’re catching a fleeting glimpse of a twelfth man at silly mid-on
And it could be Geoff, and it could be John, with a new ball sting in his tail
And it could be me, and it could be thee, and it could be the sting in the ale
Sting in the ale.

When an old cricketer leaves the crease, well you never know whether he’s gone
If sometimes you’re catching a fleeting glimpse of a twelfth man at silly mid-on
And it could be Geoff and it could be John, with a new ball sting in his tail
And it could be me and it could be thee, and it could be the sting in the ale
The sting in the ale.

When the moment comes and the gathering stands and the clock turns back to reflect
On the years of grace as those footsteps trace for the last time out of the act
Well this way of life’s recollection, the hallowed strip in the haze
The fabled men and the noonday sun are much more than just yarns of their days.

When an old cricketer leaves the crease, well you never know whether he’s gone
If sometimes you’re catching a fleeting glimpse of a twelfth man at silly mid-on
And it could be Geoff and it could be John with a new ball sting in his tail
And it could be me and it could be thee and it could be the sting in the ale
The sting in the ale.

When an old cricketer leaves the crease, well you never know whether he’s gone
If sometimes you’re catching a fleeting glimpse of a twelfth man at silly mid-on
And it could be me and it could be thee.

Geoff is Boycott (you guessed?). John is John Snow, the fast bowler.

Thank you, all those of you who expressed solicitude during my little illness. I am very touched. I can see now why it is that women outlive men. It is because they sensibly enlist medical science to deal with symptoms as they occur, they don’t impatiently wait for them to go away. And when they do see the doctor they don’t downplay those symptoms because they don’t want to make a fuss or give trouble, thereby rendering diagnosis more or less impossible. I have learnt my lesson.

I hope the little song in praise of organ donation (above) will make you smile.

PLEASE DON’T BURY ME

John Prine

Woke up this morning

Put on my slippers

Walked in the kitchen and died

And oh what a feeling!

When my soul Went thru the ceiling

And on up into heaven I did ride

When I got there they did say

John, it happened this way

You slipped upon the floor

And hit your head

And all the angels say

Just before you passed away

These were the very last words That you said:

Please don’t bury me

Down in that cold cold ground

No, I’d druther have “em” cut me up

And pass me all around

Throw my brain in a hurricane

And the blind can have my eyes

And the deaf can take both of my ears

If they don’t mind the size

Give my stomach to Milwaukee

If they run out of beer

Put my socks in a cedar box

Just get “em” out of here

Venus de Milo can have my arms

Look out! I’ve got your nose

Sell my heart to the junkman

And give my love to Rose

Give my feet to the footloose

Careless, fancy free

Give my knees to the needy

Don’t pull that stuff on me

Hand me down my walking cane

It’s a sin to tell a lie

Send my mouth way down south

And kiss my ass goodbye

Big Bird sings at the memorial service of puppeteer Jim Henson.

There are limitations to blogging. If a post looks overlong people won’t read it. So you need to stick to a single line of argument; you haven’t space to expand or balance. Once you’ve written it you must strip it down, starting with the best bits. As you contemplate clicking Publish, vanity warns you that carefully crafted incompleteness looks idiotically simplistic — sometimes offensively so.

There’s an upside. That which limits the blogger liberates the audience. Finely judged incompleteness excites responses which correct, balance and enrich the original post in ways far beyond the intellectual capability of the blogger. It’s the resulting collaborative debate which really amounts to something. As with yesterday’s post. I’m writing this on the back of that.

Funeral ceremonies which address death as a universal event are in bad odour. We all know the diss-words. Cookie-cutter. One-size-fits-all. Same-old-same-old. Ceremonies like this don’t sufficiently address the individuality of the person who has died.

But funeral ceremonies which focus on the uniqueness of the dead person mostly overlook the universality of death and present it as an isolated individual misfortune. I’m not sure that celebration-of-lifers see a funeral as an opportunity to get their heads around their own and everyone else’s mortality, nor do they ever express a wish to spend time doing so. ‘The bell tolls for him, not me.’

The present day obsession with funeral tunes is interesting. Often, it’s the only thing secular folk know they want. The tunes they choose were not created to be played at funerals. They’re anything but unique to the individual.  The emotions they arouse are arguably a distraction from the business in hand.

All people know is that they must dutifully fill a 20-minute void with noise. Not glum noise, nice noise. Words don’t come easy. Thank heaven, then, for the secular celebrant with her cabinet of emotional emollients and her smiley, kind delivery.

Tunes come off the peg, easily lifted. Ready-made blather.

Over at My Last Song Paul Hensby is looking for Goth and Country songs fit for a funeral. I’m in no position to help him out. I like my wireless to utter spoken, not sung, words. I had to confess to Paul that I can’t actually think of a single song I want played at my funeral. Having thought some more, since, I suppose I wouldn’t mind Sailing By, the music which precedes the last shipping forecast of the day. But it’s the words of the forecast I listen out for. They are imbued with poetic meaning well beyond my grasp: Dogger. Wind northerly or northeasterly, veering easterly 3 or 4, occasionally 5; sea slight, occasionally moderate; weather rain or showers; visibility moderate or good, occasionally poor.

Country music has been called white man’s blues, so there ought to be lots fit for obsequies, especially those of a lachrymose cast. As to Goth music, I stand clueless. Given the prevailing mind-weather of Goths, I’d hazard all of it, probably.

If you can help Paul out, do contact him.

And enjoy Willie Nelson, above. Great words:

In the twilight glow I seen her
Blue eyes crying in the rain
When we kissed goodbye and parted
I knew we’d never meet again
Love is like a dying ember
And only memories remain
And through the ages I’ll remember
Blue eyes crying in the rain
Someday when we meet up yonder
We’ll stroll hand in hand again
In the land that knows no parting
Blue eyes crying in the rain

The other day, Jamie, or was it Paul Hensby? at My Last Song challenged me to come up with a good song to play at a goth funeral. The fact that I couldn’t think of one was not significant: I listen to very little music. I can’t even think of anything I want played at mine. It really isn’t important. Just hum a bit if you want.

But the GFG is here to help the bereaved of all musical tastes. So, to all you goths out there, and for anyone planning a Viking funeral, may I suggest the splendid Black Metal Austrian ensemble, Summoning. These two songs are, I think, ghastly beyond words and entirely hideous but, possibly, exactly what you are looking for.

We are here to serve.

A good funeral song in its own right, especially poignant when it was played at Jennyfer Spencer’s funeral last Tuesday.

Find the lyric here.

Another gangster funeral today. No apologies for this. Gangster funerals are such ticklish affairs: it’s so difficult to gild a gangster when he’s dead.

Eamonn Dunne, special subject drugs, responsible for the murders of at least a dozen people including some of his own associates, was blown away while drinking in a Dublin pub.

His brother said of him: “You couldn’t ask for a better role model to be honest with you.” This drew a round of applause. The celebrant, Monsignor Dermot Clarke said with judicious ambiguity: “Life is precious and we should value it. Some have lost the sense of the sacredness of human life and that is to be regretted.” Mgsr Clarke also requested that nobody should smoke on church grounds. “The law of the land pertains here,” he told the congregation.

During the service, a football shirt, a ball and Dunne’s mobile phone were offered as gifts symbolising Dunne’s life journey. The offertory was accompanied by a woman singing a version of Bryan Adams’s ‘Heaven’.

You’ll Never Walk Alone – a song synonymous with his favourite soccer club Liverpool – was played as his coffin was lowered into the ground.

Towards the end of the service the congregation listened to Charlie Landsborough singing My Forever Friend. It is possible that those present supposed Eamonn to be the subject, not Jesus. Ah, well.

Read the account in the Irish Independent here.

I cannot, in all conscience, leave Louise at Sentiment Farewells lying around as a footnote in a yesterday’s blog. The four playlists she has put together, music for the soul, she calls them, constitute a brilliant resource for the bereaved and also for funeral celebrants.

Do go over to her blog and see what she’s put together. Here playlists are eclectic; there’s lots here for everybody.

Click!

And in case you missed it, here’s Simon Smith’s playlist: click!