Let’s skip the death bit and cut straight to the funeral – the fun part, for some. It seems like a peculiar indulgence to imagine one’s own final send-off, but there is something of a perverse pleasure in envisaging how the whole thing will pan out.
How many people will show up? Who will do the most wailing? Will that ex-that-got-away make an appearance, standing at the back, eyes damp, head bowed? Is the eulogy an elegant paean to what made you a wonderful person, or a scabrous act of score-settling? You can only hope the event will be packed to the rafters and have a cup-tie atmosphere, rather than a sparsely attended affair, like some listless end-of-season league game between mid-table teams.
Most importantly, what music will be played? Data by Co-op FuneralCare suggests that 24% of UK adults (in a survey of 2,000) have already made clear what music they want played at their funeral – up from 19% in 2016 – with one in four opting for songs that will make mourners laugh.
A separate survey for Macmillan Cancer Support suggests that 62% of people avoid talking about their wishes when they die and 36% say they have done no planning whatsoever for their death. Which is to say that relatives or friends are often left at a loss when it comes to organising all aspects of a loved one’s funeral, let alone how to soundtrack it.
The biennial Co-op research compiles the 10 most popular songs played at British funerals. The major finding is that the traditional hymn is going out of fashion, with no such entry in the chart for the first time since it began being compiled in 2002. The dead and their mourners tend to go for a somewhat unsurprising grab-bag of the sad, rousing, mawkish, literal and humorous. Top of the heap is Frank Sinatra’s My Way, which is fairly self-explanatory. Elsewhere, there’s the likes of Time to Say Goodbye, by Andrea Bocelli and Sarah Brightman; Robbie Williams’ Angels and then there’s Always Look on the Bright Side of Life, sung by Eric Idle. The most recent song in the list is Supermarket Flowers by Ed Sheeran, which is apparently a tribute to his late grandmother written from the point of view of his mother.
The only other song from this century is Westlife’s You Raise Me Up, which, aptly, sounds to me like the aural manifestation of death. I suppose it will get people off the pews and on to their feet when the key change kicks in.
I’m sure these truly are many people’s favourite songs – and one shouldn’t cast aspersions on the dead even if you can’t libel them – but the vague broadness of the top 10 list does have the whiff of a government minister making an assistant compile a few songs everyone’s heard of when asked, “what’s on your stereo?” for a questionnaire in a civil service magazine. This is where the difficulty begins. As the survey suggests, 76% of people don’t make clear what music, if any, they want played at the funeral. Which leaves those organising the shindig often scrabbling around to pick some tunes – looking for some old CDs lying around or deciphering what’s in their Spotify Wrapped. In fact, it’s probably best to just hand over the duties to Discover Weekly – the algorithms appear to know our taste better than we ever will.
Meanwhile, choosing all your own music before your demise can feel a touch over-determined – like you are curating your own private Desert Island Discs. And yet, if some bright spark does play that Westlife song after you’re gone, it could sour the whole memory of you. However, it is a hard process to put together such a definite set of songs. What music truly defines you? What do you even like? What is music? Who am I? Aarrrrghhh.
If forced, on pain of death, to choose a song, maybe I’d pick Peace Piece by Bill Evans – it’s sombre and truly beautiful. Or maybe I’d go for the Richard Berry version of Louie Louie. Or something else entirely. Ask me again tomorrow – or hopefully, in at least 50 years.
• Larry Ryan is a writer and editor for the Guardian
