What six songs do you want played at your funeral?

A friend (you guys might know her if you pay attention to my regular posts) - asked me a question through a message on Thursday last week. "Hey," it started "What songs to you want played at your funeral?" Earlier that day, we'd spoken about the fact that it would be delightful to be more "goth" in everyday life; and the practicalities of obtaining a hearse as a daily driver.

Music and death is a topic that I've thought about in the past, not only while writing my thesis at university on the very topic of death, but at funerals themselves. Coming from a family that was Greek Orthodox (though, I'm a staunch Atheist) - I've been to plenty of funerary ceremonies that are full of incense, Gregorian-style chanting and candles.

The Death of Socrates by Jacques-Louis David. Relevant to this post. Not my work. A masterpiece from the past.

But there's never "music" - death is a sombre affair in that culture, not a celebration of life. Witnessing the funeral of my wife's grandmother, in Brisbane, Australia - was a completely different affair. It was a coming together, and a final way for people to convene around the individual that was no longer present.

So, other than what happens to us when we die, this is what I want to subject people to when I'm gone, and about to be disposed of at some point in the future. I appreciate lyrical elements of music, so I'm going to be quoting some songs throughout the rest of this post, and explaining my "why".

These songs are in a particular order, but if you want to hear them all, you can do so on this YouTube playlist.

Delain - Silhouette of a Dancer

The first song is "Silhouette of a Dancer", by the band Delain. It's a fairly accessible piece of music, as far as my personal musical tastes go. The chorus and beginning of the second verse is poignant, which is a word I'll use a lot in this post, probably.

I close my eyes, so the world can't see me
And draw the silhouette of a dancer in my head
I can't look through your eyes
But my mind betrays mine
Should I starve unmarked?
Or confess to my blindness

My eyes still hurt
Fighting chasing lights
As they form
Silhouettes behind me
Let them go
This time

Not being able to look through the tearful eyes of mourners at your own funeral is probably pretty selfish; but it would be nice at some point of your existence to experience a healthy relationship with those individuals so you can know what they truly think of you. I am personally blind to the value I bring to my friends; and I'd love for them to aggressively assert that to me while I'm alive through displays of affection and lengthy murmuring statements, which I try to give to all the important people in my life.

The next track would be...

Chalice - As Powder Turns to Dust

This band is local. They come from the same city as me, only thing is, they stopped producing music before I discovered them, so I never had the opportunity to witness them live. I own the album on CD, one of few that I do; and it is a cherished possession. The album from where this track hails, Chronicles of Dysphoria is enough to be a funerary dirge in its entirety. It's a beautiful, masterful blend of folk, metal, violins, and piano; with some impressive guitar solos to boot.

This is a meandering song that takes eight minutes to deliver its ~18 lines. It is full of tension; and resolution, and melds strings and guitars in a way that makes you crave resolution. In many ways, it remains unresolved. It is very clearly a song about letting go of life. Some songs are just sad. This is one of them.

When they finally claim you
All matter will cease, all dreams will expire
And with a dead angel's touch
And the loss of myself
The vapour will fade
Until the day that I join you

Reunion is also a theme here. It's a song, that to me, is about lovers reuniting in some world beyond the corporeal, ontological phenomena we experience when we're defined, medically, as alive. There's a haunting piece of violin work in the middle of this song which encompasses misery in a way I can't describe. It is sorrowful, mournful; and alone stands as something that could make tissue merchants exceedingly wealthy.

Now I cower in this hollow room
Acutely aware that the time is approaching
When what I love above all else
Will be only my greatest memory
It's both tragic and symbolic
That in your darkest hour
You can still shine so bright

The magic in this song is in the way in which it is delivered. The last two lines are hauntingly sung. The whole thing is beautiful, and I can only describe it as what would happen if Oscar Wilde and Edgar Allan Poe had a podcast together, talking about loss.

Epica - Sensorium

From the album The Phantom Agony, Sensorium is a song that sounds surprisingly upbeat, given the dark nature of its lyrical messaging. First, it clarifies a point that as an Artist, and creative, I feel very strongly about, before we pivot very quickly into scientific discourse.

Being consciousness is a torment
The more we learn is the less we get
Every answer contains a new quest
A quest to non existence, a journey with no end

No one surveys the whole, focus on things so small
But life's objective is to make it meaningful
Only searching for this
That which doesn't exist

This song is very clearly about making the most of whatever life you have available to you. To not forget what it is to be human, to be frail, and to admit that nothing might even matter in the end.

We all end up in the same same place. Non-existence. I adore the entire album, but this particular song has always stuck with me very strongly.

Machine Head - Now I Lay Thee Down

Introducing our first song that has a male as the main star of the vocals - Rob Flynn's Machine Head is a thrash metal band that you would not expect to be played at any decent funeral gathering, but I want a mosh pit full of geriatric people with walkers and walking sticks banging whatever remains of their hair to the rhythm of amplified rums and guitars.

Maybe it will beamed in to their hearing aids via bluetooth. Whatever the method...

Dream over
Grieve no more
And breathe one last time
Now I lay thee down

Take a breath. Pause. Now I lay thee down. This is overarching message of the song. There's reference to suicide throughout the lyrics, but rest assured, that will not be the way my life ends, unless I am able to euthanise myself due to a deteriorating, irreversible terminal illness.

However I succumb, this would be a nice way to "go under". The music here is a taste of what I thoroughly enjoy. Melodic guitars, booming drums, raspy, falsetto vocals; and the over-dramatic theatrical presentation of the video is just the perfect goofy icing on the cake.

Machine Head - Descend the Shades of Night

This is a gorgeous piece of music. From the industrial, unemotional, amplified guitar strong that opens the curtains on this song, to the classical, clean acoustic guitar; you know it is a song about tension. The fact that it is eight minutes of tension - this song is the true definition of using contrast in music.

The dynamic range in this song is pretty good for a recording, but I've seen Machine Head live several times, and both times that they've played this in a crowded auditorium, the transition from barely audible whisper to thorax trembling energetic sound is an incredible, visceral experience.

It's like a gun shot. Quiet. Loud, then quiet, with a hissing, warm barrel left behind, and the contraction of grains of metal relaxing back into their natural, entropic state. The song opens incredibly poetic, and just gets better.

Sitting in the empty black
The last slivers of dusk have passed
Accept the dawn to ease the fear
One day I will not be here
Death she comes and with her thread
Upon me ties a mask for dead
Its tears of blood begin to seep
And bleed the sky

Descend the shades of night
Death shines her golden light
Across a blackened sky

You must appreciate this as a whole. You can't listen to a snippet of this song and understand its energy and message. You need to appreciate the lows, the highs, the booms the busts. It is eight minutes of your life that will grow you closer to me.

Don't you want to be closer to me? Well, prepare yourself for the final song in this list.

Florence + The Machine - No Choir

And it's hard to write about being happy
'Cause, the older I get
I find that happiness is an extremely uneventful subject

This is a phenomenal opening to a phenomenal, short, intensely beautiful piece of music. It wastes no time getting to its point, unlike the other tracks in this list which could be described as self indulgent and elaborate.

The empty room of a single voice, before it is joined by delicate, layered, intense instrumentation is haunting.

I gathered you here to hide from some vast unnameable fear
But the loneliness never left me
I always took it with me
But I can put it down in the pleasure of your company

What a perfect time for the instruments to come in, and a room of my most cherished people to know exactly how much they mean to me, and how much more that they can mean to each other.

And if tomorrow it's all over
At least we had it for a moment
Oh, darling, things seem so unstable
But for a moment we were able to be still

Then people can go get on with their lives. I'll be gone. They'll remain.

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