What Song Do You Want Played At Your Funeral?

A grey Monday in January, the perfect time to dwell on death, loss and communal grief right? For whatever reason, (and London’s current exhibition Death: Southbank Centre’s Festival for the Living is probably a factor, as was Rebecca’s Songs About Death Listomania last week) we’ve been picking our perfect signing out songs.

There’s a variety of ways you can bow out and head off to the great gig in the sky. Have a rummage online and funeral song suggestions seem to fall broadly into four categories: the celebratory, the tearjerkers, the literal (Brian Eno’s ‘An Ending (Ascent)’, The Doors’ ‘The End’, ‘Stairway To Heaven’, ‘Knocking On Heaven’s Door’), and the comedy (‘Always Look On The Bright Side Of Life’, ‘The Final Countdown’, ‘Highway To Hell’).

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Only a scant few people did a funeral song when I was coming of age but now it's de rigueur. I personally haven't thought about this in years but my ideas for funeral songs have been all over the map. From the predictable Dylan, Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, and even a dying Cabaret song from the movie of the same name.

Now that I am approaching another milestone birthday this fall, I should look at this again and find the perfect song. Do I go for comedy? A tear jerker? Suggestions? Or have you heard a good goodbye song?