Everyone has stories of weirdly inappropriate songs that a bride (or worse, a bride’s mother) wanted sung or played for a wedding. But funerals have their own list.
I was chatting with a retired priest I knew, an intelligent, articulate homilist with a quick wit and a wonderful sense of humour. We were tossing around titles of songs that should probably not be played at funerals, things like “Is That All There Is?” and “The Hokey-Pokey.”
Cremations were a rich source of possibles:
“Dust in the Wind”
“We Didn’t Start the Fire”
“Oh, Bury Me Not (on the Lone Prairie)”
“There’ll be a Hot Time in the Ol’ Town Tonight
“Come on, Baby, Light My Fire”
Carey Landry’s “Bloom Where You’re Planted” got the nod for graveside services.
Then the priest told me a true story about a parishioner at whose funeral he had presided. Her community knew her well as an indefatigable traveller to many places, finishing one trip and immediately planning the next. Thus it was that as her casket was being wheeled out of the church at the end of the service, someone pressed the proper button on the CD player and the unmistakable voice of Willie Nelson intoned:
“On the road again.......”
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