Life, huh. You’re born, you go from cute to not cute, then hot to not hot, you stare at your phone for a bit, eat a few nice dinners, shit them out, do some queueing, maybe fall in love, maybe change some nappies, increase your overdraft, attend a couple of soul-crushing meetings, go on a mini break, do some DIY, open an ISA, spend a third of your time unconscious, and then, after all of that, you die.
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Provided you weren’t a complete arsehole to every single person you met, normally what happens next is some sort of ceremony to commemorate your life. In this part of the world, people usually wear black, there’s a buffet and some of the people who knew you best stand up in front of all of your neighbours and former colleagues and make a noble effort to summarise your whole personality in a few brief words.Except it’s really hard, isn’t it, to do justice to somebody’s entire life with a couple of pithy remarks about their fondness for Emmerdale, or how they hadn’t missed a West Ham fixture in 14 years, or the deep and unconditional love they had for their seven cats? Quite a tall order, really, to express all of the joy, passion, wonder, boredom and despair that constitutes somebody’s whole existence in a five-minute speech delivered to a room of vague acquaintances, while also trying not to cry so hysterically that you literally vomit.Yeah, life is huge, language is fallible and funerals are fucking weird. As such, songs are usually also played at funerals because – let's be honest – your fave tune will probably do a better job than your dearly beloved’s weird life-summarising speech. With that in mind, I asked a bunch of people which songs they would like to have played at their own funeral. Time to get morbid!I just think it's a song that has so many layers. You've got a celebratory horn section, and that funky bass slap. It's almost gospel. But it's also a song about being authentic and living your life, mistakes and everything. It's about being loved and loving people and about being true and while I'm not sure that I always live up to that, it's something that I aspire to. Also, there's a fucking key change, which is the sort of dramatic and ridiculous shit that I'd want to have at my funeral. I think it’d make people laugh, which is important, because life can be tragic and death is tragic and hard on those around you. It makes you think about your mortality, and I'd hope that an upbeat song would help people to deal with that. Also, it's fucking fabulous and that's how I'd want to be remembered. Alim, 27.
Cheryl Lynn – “Got To Be Real”
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My Chemical Romance – “I'm Not Okay”
Deep Purple – “Lazy”
Joanna Newsom – “Sawdust and Diamonds”
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