A question I’m asked with alarming regularity is;
‘I’m not sure if it’s appropriate. What do you think?
This is often about music choices. I can see the wheels turning in the next of kin’s mind as they wrestle with the dilemma.
John really liked heavy metal but it’s a funeral. Aren’t funerals meant to be all sad and sombre?
Well, sometimes they are.
And sometimes they aren’t.
When it comes to music, you need to ask yourself two questions.
Did the deceased like it?
Does it mean something to those who are left?
If the answer to both those questions is ‘yes’, then your dilemma is answered.
It’s appropriate.
Go ahead, choose ‘Highway to Hell‘ choose ‘Burn Baby Burn‘. Choose whatever the heck you want because this is your chance to remember them in the best way possible and if you think you have to sit through 10 minutes of a mind-numbingly dull hymn ( mentioning no name) then you are sadly mistaken.
There’s nothing wrong with hymns, some of them are lovely and if they are a reflection of the deceased, then have one. But please don’t feel that having a hymn is mandatory just because you happen to be in a chapel or a crematorium.
I speak from my, and many of my fellow celebrants, experience, that when the music choices are a true reflection of a person, it means so much more than mechanically choosing something that you think you have to have.
So if dad played ‘Living On A Prayer‘ at full volume, on loop, every time you drove down to Cornwall on holiday, then for goodness sake, make sure you choose it for his funeral.