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It's Your Funeral

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    It's Your Funeral

    'Final Songs' is an album getting released on Get Physical and is inviting various people to choose which songs they want played at their funeral.

    Which got me thinking about which songs were actually about funerals. I've put my selection on a Quietus Spotify mix here if you want to listen to it.

    I vetoed 'Tramp Down The Dirt' because despite its fine sentiments it's truly awful. Fucking pan pipes. There are plenty of songs that invoke funereal imagery and terminology like coffin nails but fewer that are good but actually about a burial.

    Anyway, mine are here. Any more suggestions?

    (Also in the article is a link to an awesome Devo video that features Hendrix flying out of his coffin to play a guitar solo. )

    #2
    It's Your Funeral

    'Lay Me Low' by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds

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      #3
      It's Your Funeral

      We went for 'A Box For Black Paul'

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        #4
        It's Your Funeral

        (By the way, Carcass, it might just be my browser, but the link in that article to take you to the actual mix doesn't seem to be working.)

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          #5
          It's Your Funeral

          I like "The Funeral" by McCarthy:

          Mother they were lowering slowly into her grave
          And the good priest was speaking on the happiness above
          "Here below, where man was made to work and weep
          We all must walk through evil lands and vales of suffering"

          Suddenly a shout blew the ceremony
          The undertaker's man came running, and waved a piece of paper
          "Sir, this bill," he sought to let the undertaker know, "it's not paid"
          "Well stop the show," his master said
          The gravediggers raised the corpse and waited patiently at hand
          The priest hissed in some dismay, "Is this quite the time or place?"

          Venomously, Father said, "We'll have the money Tuesday"
          The undertaker had to laugh - "Well Tuesday she'll be buried"
          "Charity!" wept the priest in utter disbelief
          Father aimed a blow, the undertaker said
          "Business is business, man, and that coffin is worth a lot
          Open it up right away, boys - there are others who can pay"

          Here below where man was made to work and weep
          We all must walk through evil lands and vales of suffering

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            #6
            It's Your Funeral

            Asleep by The Smiths would work, but I don't want it played at my funeral, thanks.

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              #7
              It's Your Funeral

              Smog - Dress Sexy At My Funeral

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                #8
                It's Your Funeral

                All the links are working for me Clive old bean.

                Were McCarthy Tim Gane's pre-Stereolab group? I can't remember if I've ever heard them or not.

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                  #9
                  It's Your Funeral

                  That was them. I've got "I Am A Wallet" somewhere, and I remember it being pretty good.

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                    #10
                    It's Your Funeral

                    Carcass wrote:
                    Were McCarthy Tim Gane's pre-Stereolab group? I can't remember if I've ever heard them or not.
                    Yep. Sort of sounded like an amphetamine version of the early Smiths, with lyrics by this raving RCP nutter, songs called things like "The Procession Of Popular Capitalism" and "The Home Secretary Briefs The Forces Of Law And Order". Good group. This one got a few plays in my house round the time of the Iraq War: McCarthy - The Enemy Is At Home

                    Anyway, enough derailing. I thought of another good funeral song - "Such A Small Love" by Scott Walker:

                    Mist falls, and his voice cracks from the morning
                    Flowers, and my body feels like lead
                    Someone should have stopped the birds from singing today
                    Hammers from striking nails into clay

                    Her face penetrates the blue-grey morning
                    Her eyes, pregnant pools, produce a tear
                    Someone should have shouted you had gone in her ear
                    That summer was stolen away

                    Such a small love
                    Such a little tear
                    You would laugh so loud
                    If you could see us here

                    With my one suit
                    Badly pressed and worn
                    Like a child left
                    In the world alone

                    He speaks, I don't hear a word he's saying
                    Hang on to the pine trees and the snow
                    Reach out, grab the memories that are left for your hand
                    They'll help you get by for a while

                    Such a small love
                    Such a little tear
                    Is this all that's left
                    On your cheek so pale

                    His shallow, half-lit eyes
                    His rotted teeth grown on
                    Drunken madman nights
                    Ending up in jail

                    With night fallings
                    Drenched in day-glo red
                    Words collided
                    Things we left unsaid

                    Perfumed pillows
                    Girls that clung so near
                    Such a small love
                    Such a little tear

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                      #11
                      It's Your Funeral

                      Has "Another One Bites The Dust" become a cliche at funerals yet, or have not enough irony-aged hipsters died yet?

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                        #12
                        It's Your Funeral

                        No love for Terry Jacks? I am shocked.

                        And, obviously, Mozart's Requiem and some funeralish song by Bob Dylan must feature.

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                          #13
                          It's Your Funeral

                          Kylie - Spinning Around.

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                            #14
                            It's Your Funeral

                            'Pyre' by the Crazy World Of Arthur Brown.

                            Sort of sounded like an amphetamine version of the early Smiths, with lyrics by this raving RCP nutter, songs called things like "The Procession Of Popular Capitalism" and "The Home Secretary Briefs The Forces Of Law And Order"
                            That sounds amazing.

                            Comment


                              #15
                              It's Your Funeral

                              'Funeral Tango' by Jacques Brel, as done by Scott Walker.

                              Anything by Burial.

                              'Please Mr. Gravedigger' by David Bowie.

                              For years my nominated funeral song has been 'Killing Yourself To Live' by Black Sabbath, and I still don't see any reason to change it. If I get married I want it played at my wedding too.

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                                #16
                                It's Your Funeral

                                Green Grass by Tom Waits. More a song from the corpse's PoV than a funeral song per se, but I'd want it played at mine.

                                Lay your head where my heart used to be
                                Hold the earth above me
                                Lay down in the green grass
                                Remember when you loved me

                                Come closer don't be shy
                                Stand beneath a rainy sky
                                The moon is over the rise
                                Think of me as a train goes by

                                Clear the thistles and brambles
                                Whistle 'Didn't He Ramble'
                                Now there's a bubble of me
                                and it's floating in thee

                                Stand in the shade of me
                                Things are now made of me
                                The weather vane will say:
                                It smells like rain today

                                God took the stars and he tossed 'em
                                Can't tell the birds from the blossoms
                                You'll never be free of me
                                He'll make a tree from me

                                Don't say good bye to me
                                Describe the sky to me
                                And if the sky falls, mark my words
                                we'll catch mocking birds

                                Lay your head where my heart used to be
                                Hold the earth above me
                                Lay down in the green grass
                                Remember when you loved me

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                                  #17
                                  It's Your Funeral

                                  Ah, we had Funeral Polka by Tom W.

                                  Comment


                                    #18
                                    It's Your Funeral

                                    evilC wrote:
                                    (By the way, Carcass, it might just be my browser, but the link in that article to take you to the actual mix doesn't seem to be working.)
                                    You need to have the Spotify application installed on your Mac/PC before the link will work. Go here first
                                    https://www.spotify.com/en/
                                    ...create account/download

                                    Then come back and click the link.

                                    Will be brilliant if there's more of this sort of stuff from The Quietus Carcass

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                                      #19
                                      It's Your Funeral

                                      Thank you AMP. We'll be running a themed spotify/you tube playlist every Friday afternoon from now on.

                                      Cheers.

                                      Comment


                                        #20
                                        It's Your Funeral

                                        amp wrote:
                                        evilC wrote:
                                        (By the way, Carcass, it might just be my browser, but the link in that article to take you to the actual mix doesn't seem to be working.)
                                        You need to have the Spotify application installed on your Mac/PC before the link will work. Go here first
                                        https://www.spotify.com/en/
                                        ...create account/download

                                        Then come back and click the link.

                                        Will be brilliant if there's more of this sort of stuff from The Quietus Carcass
                                        Ah!

                                        Cheers, Amp - I was totally unaware of that.

                                        Comment


                                          #21
                                          It's Your Funeral

                                          Sadly it's not yet available in Canada.

                                          Comment


                                            #22
                                            It's Your Funeral

                                            Rightio!

                                            I've made a suitably-themed compilation, of 8 tracks in length. It's taken me bloody hours, though, as I had to trawl through my entire 'My music' folder, playing tracks along the way (meaning that I got distracted, of course). Thus, apologies if in the meantime someone else has independently posted the same tracks.

                                            You'd have thought that, as an old goth, I'd have loads of burial-related stuff, but no.

                                            Anyway, here it is:

                                            'Funerary'

                                            It's, ummm... quite varied!

                                            Tracklisting:

                                            1 SPK - Necropolis
                                            2 The Cure - The Funeral Party
                                            3 Siouxsie And The Banshees - Premature Burial
                                            4 An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump - Buried in Dust (demo)
                                            5 Amenra - De Dodenakker
                                            6 Echo West - Sleepdead
                                            7 M83 - In Church
                                            8 Diamanda Galas - See That My Grave Is Kept Clean

                                            Comment


                                              #23
                                              It's Your Funeral

                                              Carcass wrote:
                                              'Pyre' by the Crazy World Of Arthur Brown.

                                              Sort of sounded like an amphetamine version of the early Smiths, with lyrics by this raving RCP nutter, songs called things like "The Procession Of Popular Capitalism" and "The Home Secretary Briefs The Forces Of Law And Order"
                                              That sounds amazing.
                                              McCarthy were music press pariahs for ages. My girlfriend at the time was obssessed with The Smiths, whom I loathed, so I was desperately scrabbling around, trying to buy her anything that sounded similar, only without the atonal wailing in the foreground of the mix. Thus: Felt, The Wedding Present (oh, the irony!), Brian, The Primitives, The Darling Buds and... McCarthy. I actually liked them because of their 'politicisation' of (what I considered to be) the rather anodyne genre of janglepop. They didn't have very many tunes, though, and the lyrics always seemed shoehorned uncomfortably into the melodies. It wasn't a brilliant combination, I have to say. Still preferable by far to The Smiths, though.

                                              I had no idea one of them went on to be in Stereolab!

                                              Comment


                                                #24
                                                It's Your Funeral

                                                Eight songs for a funeral? I know it's your last big day and everything, but I wouldn't want people getting sore arses or anything. So...

                                                Is there an eponymous title track on "Sheer Heart Attack", by Queen? Because this is the way that I am most likely to go. Next, in keeping with the theme of the day, "Funeral Pyre" by The Jam. And we'll finish off with "Monkey Gone To Heaven" and The Muppets' version of "Simon Smith & His Amazing Dancing Bear".

                                                In reality, on my death bed, stuffed full of tubes and off my tits on morphine, I'll probably say something like, "Guhhhhhh... Kate, take this down. I want "La Marseillaise" - EVERYBODY MUST STAND - "A Little stick Of Blackpool Rock" by George Formby, something by The Temptations, yeahhhh, "Psychedelic Shack", and... guhhhhhh... the jingle from the start of Pac Man".

                                                Comment


                                                  #25
                                                  It's Your Funeral

                                                  Actually, the morphine list might be my preferred option.

                                                  Comment

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