The Perfect Funeral [Archive]

vivfox

01-10-2010, 10:21 PM

Sunday, January 10, 2010
Gone, I Say

Although I don't plan on ascending to heaven anytime soon, I am interested in the subject of death (meaning I love depressing poetry about death and am extremely scared of it!) and I do pay close attention to detail. So although I'm only 21, I've planned how I want my funeral to go.

I know, this entry might seem kind of morbid. But I asked my followers on Twitter whether I should blog about my funeral and got responses like "Yes! Please do!" and "I can't wait to attend!" So here it is.

First of all, and very importantly, I do NOT want a viewing.

I've had a lot of conversations about this with my friends, and some of them say, "But your family members won't be able to say goodbye unless they physically SEE your decomposing corpse!" And I'm not against open casket in general (as long as I look good!), so I can have an open casket funeral, but NO viewing! I don't need a bunch of people sitting in a room with my cold body for the whole night, just so they can pay attention to who is crying the hardest. Please, if you wanna see my body then look at the funeral, not at a special death party the night before!

Also, I don't need flowers. Sure they look nice, but what use are they really? They just shrivel up and die. So please save your money! Instead, you can purchase an approved CD (the list of approved CDs will be with Josh) and enjoy my favorite music in my memory!

So, my whole funeral is going to be outdoors. And I don't care if it's winter; suck it up! You think you're cold?! At least you can still feel!!

Now that we've taken care of those details, here's how the funeral service will go down.
It will start with Josh reading my favorite poem, "The Truth The Dead Know."

(And if Josh happens to die before I do, I'll read it as his funeral!)

This will be followed by the concert section of my funeral.

Katy Perry will perform "Thinking of You"

Then Kelly Clarkson will sing "Sober"

Then Stevie Nicks (who will already be dressed in black probably) will grab Lindsey Buckingham and they will come and sing two songs, "Storms" and "Beautiful Child."

As an encore, all four of the performers will come out and sing a medley of Joni Mitchell's "Blue," Regina Spektor's "Samson," and "Didn't We Almost Have It All" by Whitney Houston.

Following the concert, the feature film Precious will be screened, in its entirety.

I know, this seems kind of long. But if you leave AT ANY POINT IN THE FUNERAL you will be considered really rude and everyone will throw stuff at you!

After Precious, attendees can finally leave. As they walk away, an orchestra (with a lot of strings!) will play sad music (occasionally mixing in some Britney or Ke$ha). The end!

Alright, so now whenever I die I have this record. My funeral better go exactly like this or I will haunt all of you!!

http://hoteltuesday.blogspot.com/2010/01/gone-i-say.html

louielouie2000

01-10-2010, 10:45 PM

I've always said I want Beautiful Child played at my funeral too :thumbsup:.

gypsy4life

01-10-2010, 10:55 PM

I wonder how many funerals have been graced by the notes of a Stevie Nicks song?

jaycee

01-11-2010, 01:00 AM

If I'm lucky enough to have a funeral (I'm expecting a cataclysmic end to the world in the form of an asteroid in August 2028... at least I think that's what the professional asteroid-hunting astronomers reported a while back), I wouldn't really want much in the way of sad music played. I'd prefer something inappropriate, like "Not That Funny" or "Don't Stop". Also maybe "Magic Carpet Ride" by Steppenwolf... perhaps "Sultans of Swing" by Dire Straits... basically, any music seemingly inappropriate (but I have to have actually liked it during the time I was alive, of course). I'm a generally eccentric person (despite exterior appearances), and I want to be remembered that way, dammit! :lol: :laugh:
But I might have one slightly sad track played. "Little Lies", perhaps? Even if the lyrics aren't really relevant. "Silver Springs" would be a good one too. And it's especially inappropriate, given the lyrics! Just the way I'd like it! Although if I had an ex I was still friends with at the funeral, it might be best to avoid it... :laugh:
Actually, I just realised the sad track that'd be directly relevant to my general worldview - John Lennon's "Imagine". Although John Lennon >> Jordan Clarke (me, jaycee, just to be sure you know), so I don't know whether I'd deserve such an honour. :shrug: Maybe I could get away with "Mind Games"...

GypsySorcerer

01-11-2010, 09:34 AM

I've always wanted "Storms" played at my funeral. :o

holidayroad

01-11-2010, 09:45 AM

I would really prefer not to have a funeral, but if I did, I wouldn't want any music played. I'd rather everyone associate hearing Fleetwood Mac with the happy times with me. If they associate it with my death, they won't listen to it anymore:)

GoldDustBoy

01-11-2010, 10:11 AM

I want my ashes to be made into diamonds which would be given to people who cared for me while Landslide is playing in the background. :lol: When I die, people will be reminded of me every time they hear FM/SN anyway.

petep9000

01-11-2010, 10:21 AM

I'd like my ashes to be thrown to the winds, preferably off the top of a lighthouse by the Atlantic Ocean. No viewing, no music.

HomerMcvie

01-11-2010, 02:41 PM

I will be cremated, and the family has instructions to mix my dog's ashes with mine, for two creatures were never meant to be together, any more than we were.

I still haven't decided if I want the ashes scattered, or what...somebody's mantle sounds nice, but what happens when they get old and die? Do I get passed off, to someone who doesn't even want me? :lol:

I would like a memorial, with FM music playing, and a keg of beer! THAT'S, how I want to be remembered, having a good time!

goldustsongbird

01-11-2010, 06:35 PM

This should be played at my funeral.
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carrie721

01-11-2010, 06:41 PM

michelej1

01-11-2010, 06:55 PM

I'd probably go with Say We'll Meet Again, although if I was in a mood where I didn't want people to be sad, I'd pick Castaway Dreams. But I probably want them to be sad and mournful:).

I have ashes. I have all of my father's and a portion of my grandmother's. I think I will be buried in a casket with instructions that those ashes be placed in the casket with me. I've said this orally to my family, but I haven't written it anywhere. Hey, I better do that!

The dilemma Homer mentioned does plague me with guilt. If I died and that silver sphere that holds my father's ashes were just tossed aside, because there's no one else who wants it, I'd feel really awful in the afterlife. I get teary just thinking about it.

Michele

shackin'up

01-11-2010, 07:06 PM

HomerMcvie

01-11-2010, 07:51 PM

The dilemma Homer mentioned does plague me with guilt. If I died and that silver sphere that holds my father's ashes were just tossed aside, because there's no one else who wants it, I'd feel really awful in the afterlife. I get teary just thinking about it.

Michele
Yes, that's why I think I HAVE to pick a place for us to be scattered. I mean, what happens when your "keeper" passes on? I think it would be rare, for their offspring to keep you, at least for more than one generation.

I'm leaning towards either my land at home, or a certain park in Nashville, TN.

goldustsongbird

01-11-2010, 08:31 PM

i would have pegged you for a rattlesnake shake kind of girl.

http://img704.imageshack.us/img704/4570/thankyoubutnoi.jpg

Zombie

01-11-2010, 08:43 PM

Last month, december, my mother died,

We played Sara, Landslide, Save me A Place, Du bist die welt fur mich from Richard Tauber (recorded in 1934) , Pearl Jam's Just Breathe and Albatross.

It was beautiful.

I'm so sorry for your loss. Save Me a Place wouldn't have occurred to me, but now that I think about it, it's a great choice. I bet the service was lovely. Take care of yourself.

mylittledemon

01-11-2010, 09:14 PM

Last month, december, my mother died,

We played Sara, Landslide, Save me A Place, Du bist die welt fur mich from Richard Tauber (recorded in 1934) , Pearl Jam's Just Breathe and Albatross.

It was beautiful.

I'm sorry you lost your mother.

When my dad died in '06... we debated on what to play at the funeral. My brother and sister wanted me to just play guitar but I wasn't sure if I could keep it together. I suggested playing a Rolling Stones tune (Start Me Up) after my sister told my brother and I that Dad said to "Toss me in a ditch when it's over" :lol: :rolleyes: (you had to know my Dad)... but in the end my brother and sister suggested Songbird. It went perfectly with the service I thought.

carrie721

01-12-2010, 12:19 AM

http://img704.imageshack.us/img704/4570/thankyoubutnoi.jpg

that was a little bit rude.

MoonWaterPoet

01-12-2010, 12:47 AM

I'm sorry you lost your mother.

When my dad died in '06... we debated on what to play at the funeral. My brother and sister wanted me to just play guitar but I wasn't sure if I could keep it together. I suggested playing a Rolling Stones tune (Start Me Up) after my sister told my brother and I that Dad said to "Toss me in a ditch when it's over" :lol: :rolleyes: (you had to know my Dad)... but in the end my brother and sister suggested Songbird. It went perfectly with the service I thought.

"Songbird" has always been my first choice for a 'last song' played at my funeral... And my second choice would probably be "Landslide" ~...

"For You ~ There'll Be No More Crying" ~...

Donnie Wayne ~

jaycee

01-12-2010, 03:02 AM

I'm sorry you lost your mother.

When my dad died in '06... we debated on what to play at the funeral. My brother and sister wanted me to just play guitar but I wasn't sure if I could keep it together. I suggested playing a Rolling Stones tune (Start Me Up) after my sister told my brother and I that Dad said to "Toss me in a ditch when it's over" :lol: :rolleyes: (you had to know my Dad)... but in the end my brother and sister suggested Songbird. It went perfectly with the service I thought.

He sounds a lot like me! :laugh: Although I'm guessing he wasn't painful to be around, unlike myself. :D

fringed n fab

01-12-2010, 03:13 AM

jaycee

01-12-2010, 04:14 AM

Sorry to hear about your dad Brandon and everyone else who's lost someone. I can't remember which one it was, either Sylvia Browne or psychic Char Margolis who once said that usually at funerals the deceased women will usually walk around and smell all the flowers and the deceased men will walk out in the parking lot to see who all showed up.

Indeed I, like any reasonable person, am also sorry for anyone who's lost someone significant in their lives, whether it be family or friend. It's always a painful experience for the remaining family and friends to lose someone to the inevitable eventuality of death. :( However, for the person that's actually died, it's the most neutral experience anyone can... well, experience. It's quite a lot like going to sleep, except in sleep of course you can have dreams that you can sometimes remember when you wake up.
Another way to think about death is this - I wouldn't like to die tomorrow, of course, but if I did die I wouldn't even know it! I can't help but think of Mark Twain:
"I do not fear death. I had been dead for billions and billions of years before I was born, and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it."
What I'm getting around to is that we shouldn't indulge the thoughts of how our loved ones might still be here - all that does is bulge the hip-pockets of charlatans that prey on emotionally vulnerable people, especially at such a grievous time. (Amazingly, some charlatans genuinely think they're doing the nice thing of going along with people's beliefs, because it gives their clients "closure" - as far as I know, clients usually return for multiple services, almost like an addiction!)
Another travesty is the expenses of funerals themselves. Funeral agencies charge ridiculous amounts of money for coffins and the funeral service, knowing their clients are willing to pay excessive amounts of money because... well, how could anyone stand the thought of going cheap on a deceased loved one?! I certainly couldn't! Although I certainly hope that, if I get to have a funeral, nobody wastes their money on said coffins and services when it comes to shoving me in a hole in the ground!

fringed n fab

01-12-2010, 04:53 AM

Indeed I, like any reasonable person, am also sorry for anyone who's lost someone significant in their lives, whether it be family or friend. It's always a painful experience for the remaining family and friends to lose someone to the inevitable eventuality of death. :( However, for the person that's actually died, it's the most neutral experience anyone can... well, experience. It's quite a lot like going to sleep, except in sleep of course you can have dreams that you can sometimes remember when you wake up.
Another way to think about death is this - I wouldn't like to die tomorrow, of course, but if I did die I wouldn't even know it! I can't help but think of Mark Twain:
"I do not fear death. I had been dead for billions and billions of years before I was born, and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it."
What I'm getting around to is that we shouldn't indulge the thoughts of how our loved ones might still be here - all that does is bulge the hip-pockets of charlatans that prey on emotionally vulnerable people, especially at such a grievous time. (Amazingly, some charlatans genuinely think they're doing the nice thing of going along with people's beliefs, because it gives their clients "closure" - as far as I know, clients usually return for multiple services, almost like an addiction!)Another travesty is the expenses of funerals themselves. Funeral agencies charge ridiculous amounts of money for coffins and the funeral service, knowing their clients are willing to pay excessive amounts of money because... well, how could anyone stand the thought of going cheap on a deceased loved one?! I certainly couldn't! Although I certainly hope that, if I get to have a funeral, nobody wastes their money on said coffins and services when it comes to shoving me in a hole in the ground!
It's everyone's prerogative whether they believe in (true, world renowned psychics) like I do. And I only intrust in a very few. There will always be skeptics as long as we have things we can't explain easily or things we may fear or unknow of. I'm one who happens to believe that yes, our true psychics are God sent and are like God's little messengers giving us some kind of insight into the afterlife and Heaven and all that so we'll have some comfort in knowing (in this life) and not to go through this world wondering about it. Now I do believe there are tons of fake psychic scammers in the world, and charlatans and people like Sylvia Browne have been notorious in their careers for turning them all in to the proper authorities over the years. No I don't for one minute believe every person who claims to be "psychic" or the corner gypsy who sets up shop. I'm not stupid and gullible. But I do believe in noted psychics like Char and Sylvia because I've seen them bring people to their knees too many times over stuff they couldn't possibly know anything about. To me, they've proven themselves to be some sort of God given messengers to better help the rest of us in some way understand. And they will tell you that. Yes Sylvia in 50 years may have flubbed a time or two with people but she is human at the end of the day and in over 50 years and countless readings and cases of people, she's been RIGHT more than she's been wrong. Or she wouldn't have survived this long as a practicing psychic. I don't want to go off topic about all this, especially in the Fleetwood Mac forum but it's ok to hold your personal opinions about it and be skeptical of things you may not know of or that aren't so easily explained. Sylvia Browne has explained in every book I've read of hers that you should just go with your OWN gut feeling about things, that you don't have to take her word or agree with what she has to say. Go with what you feel is right in your own mind and heart and that's what I and many of her fans do. I don't agree with everything she has to say, but I will say that I feel in my heart and gut that about 98% of the things she has talked about "so easily, just simply make sense" to me. And the millions of others across the world. It's not like you get brainwashed into believing or anything. It's just for me, she's shed some light and given insight into things you walk around feeling that are mysterious to you. And the woman simply makes some sense to me about God, ghosts, spirits, dying, the afterlife, and Heaven. All these things we can't so easily explain or get an answer to. To me what better way than to listen to someone who delves in it and talks to the dead and the people already passed on who are already "up there". The things she talks about become fascinating really and nothing at all to fear. I feel this way about Char too.

fringed n fab

01-12-2010, 04:59 AM

It's also important I think, not to get so wrapped up about death, the afterlife and such, that we forget to live while here. I believe everyone is psychic to some degree. Some of the more gifted are just able to tap into it more or have heightened senses.

fringed n fab

01-12-2010, 05:12 AM

jaycee

01-12-2010, 06:49 AM

I will discuss more on this in another thread I feel is better suited for this discussion. And better to understand why I feel this way about stuff like this. And hopefully people don't think you're nuts lol but simply someone trying to make sense of it all : /

Then this will be my last comment on this for this thread! :laugh:
I'm the sort of person who's more on the James Randi side of things (I just read the Wikipedia article on Sylvia... she charges a lot, doesn't she? http://readings.sylviabrowne.com/ says $850 for a phone reading...) - I love being skeptical of everything I can be skeptical about, making as few assumptions as possible along the way, even trying to break said assumptions where I can. Roger Penrose, in his immensley challenging book "The Road to Reality" (I've only had the patience and stamina to read small snippets), was the first person who really taught me to be a skeptic when he kept pressing the ideas of "but how do we know?" and "is this a reasonable assumption?" - he showed me, after a lot of confusion and mental strain, that parallel lines can meet! Once I finally understood what he was on about, I realised that even the most apparently obvious aspects of how nature and mathematics works can actually be either incomplete or entirely wrong! So I'm sure you can imagine how skeptical I feel about things that aren't quite as obvious as others, especially things that go against the grain of current-day science...
The message boards have a bad habit of getting off topic lately... :lol: it's probably mostly my fault! :laugh:

golddustwoman77

01-12-2010, 05:33 PM

I want "Songbird" and "God's Garden" played at my funeral, not that I'm hoping to be planning that any time soon. :lol:

goldustsongbird

01-12-2010, 09:57 PM

that was a little bit rude.

No, rude would be playing Sugar Daddy at my funeral.

SteveMacD

01-12-2010, 11:43 PM

I want Songbird played at my Tibetan sky-burial.

carrie721

01-12-2010, 11:58 PM

No, rude would be playing Sugar Daddy at my funeral.

what about suge knight?

sjpdg

01-16-2010, 04:07 AM

My uncle passed last year and he had "Don't Stop" played at his service. It was fantastic! Really fit the mood for the man. He was a very positive person and just flowed positive energy. He was a Fleetwood Mac and Eric Clapton fan.

For me, here are several essentials for my service: "Don't Stop", "Danny Boy" by Eric Clapton, "Albatross", "On The Road Again" (at the very end that is!!), "Amazing Grace" by the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards, "Hector the Hero" by the Denver Brass, and "Into The West" by Annie Lennox. There's a longer list of "must plays" including various spiritual/religious songs but I'll leave that for my family to handle when the time comes (which I hope is sometime around 50 years (or more) from now!!!!!! I don't want anything down and depressing. After all, I'll be off this crumbling rock and rejoicing, so why shouldn't my family and friends do the same?! Make it a celebration of life I say!! NO black clothing!! Have a nice service, then back to the house for music (including lots of Fleetwood Mac) and party!