The Last Playlist

It’s hard to believe it’s been a year since my dad passed.  I still don’t know exactly what to say.  Obviously the past year has been difficult and it’s hard to sum up all that in a blog entry, nor is much of it stuff I want to air out in public.  For this sad anniversary, I wanted to focus on what may be considered a small detail of his memorial service: the music played beforehand.  As far as I know he never gave any specific requests as to what he wanted to be played.  Ultimately, I took it on myself to craft about an hour or so of music that was not only appropriate for a funeral, but also music I knew he enjoyed.  In the end I whittled it down to 18 songs, and was proud of the end product.

Playlists were something my dad really got attached to when he found iTunes, and that was something I had in mind while making it.  It wasn’t just 18 songs played at random, I wanted a certain rhythm and flow to it: to have the songs about mourning the loss early on and finish with celebrating what we had, touching upon some of his favorites along the way.  So here is a breakdown of that ultimate playlist, with a little commentary:

1) “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door” – Bob Dylan

The funeral staples are a little tricky, but fortunately this was a right fit.  My dad was a big fan of Dylan, and this was a good choice to kick it off.

2, 4-6) “Day After Day” – Badfinger, “Time of the Season” – The Zombies, “Johnny Too Bad” – Taj Mahal & “Spooky” – Classics IV

I lump these together because they aren’t really funeral type stuff (although The Zombies doesn’t sound like a band you would want to play at a funeral) and were songs my dad really liked to listen to.  These songs were frequent in playlists he’d play on Saturday afternoons (music on Saturdays were an unofficial tradition growing up) after we transitioned to playing the music primarily on the computer.

3)  “In My Life” – The Beatles

Another funeral staple.  My parents turned me on to the Beatles and this song is one of their best.  Perhaps it has a different meaning for my generation than the previous one since John Lennon was dead before I was even born.  Now it seems more like looking back at someone already gone than someone looking back on their own life.  Regardless, I knew the Fab Four needed to be represented somewhere.

7) Nightswimming – R.E.M.

I picked this one because it feels bittersweet, as the song’s narrator reflects on the passage of time and how fleeting things are (“September’s coming soon”).  It’s also just a gorgeous song and I will take advantage of any excuse I have to play it.

8) “Keep Me in Your Heart” – Warren Zevon

I think this may be the only funeral staple made by someone who was near the end of his life (the album was released about a week and a half before Zevon died from cancer in 2003).  It always amazes me when an artist can hit something as profoundly true as he does here, facing the end.  It acknowledges the sadness of death, but also the fact that life goes on, and the memories of those we’ve lost stay with us.

9) “Hey Jude” – The Mutato Musika Orchestra (From the film The Royal Tenenbaums)

Here is where I tried to turn it around a little bit, leading to the uplift at the end.  I’d already used a song the Beatles wrote, but The Royal Tenenbaums was a favorite of ours, and for a hint at what’s to come, this soundtrack has a lot of songs that work for funerals.

10) “(The Angels Wanna Wear My) Red Shoes” – Elvis Costello

My dad was a huge fan of Elvis Costello.  He owned an enormous, wall sized poster of him that he’d put up in his office (I believe my sister has it these days).  We even saw Costello do an acoustic set at Woodstock 99.  Most of his music I found a little hard to fit with the rest of the playlist, but with the title I couldn’t resist (though I don’t remember my dad owning any red shoes).

11) “I’ll Fly Away” – Alison Kraus and Gillian Welch

My dad became more in touch with his spiritual side in the last decade of his life, and I wanted to include that in the playlist.  Plus I really enjoyed this version, recorded for the O Brother, Where Art Thou? Soundtrack.

12) “The Fairest of the Seasons” – Nico

The second song from The Royal Tenenbaums, maybe the most somber from the second half, but it felt right as a part of saying goodbye.

13) “What a Wonderful World” – Louis Armstrong

Perhaps the funeral staple, if not top 5.  My dad loved jazz and Louis Armstrong.  Armstrong’s music played at the house all the time, especially his work with Ella Fitzgerald.

14) “We’ll Meet Again” – Vera Lynn

Besides the spiritual implications this song can have in the funeral context, this song has a connection to my relationship with my dad because of its use during the end sequence of Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.  Dr. Strangelove was one of the first films my dad showed me when I started to get interested in movies beyond entertainment and it is still one of my favorite films.  Plus it adds to the uplift I was hoping to get as the mix nears its close.

15) “This Must Be the Place (Naïve Melody)” – Talking Heads

Of course our parents influence our tastes by passing down what they liked to us, and my dad loved Talking Heads.  So I wound up loving them too.  This song is simple and beautiful and evokes a strong feeling of peace (I could see the song working at a wedding as well).

16) “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” – The Rolling Stones

This song definitely encapsulates the “acceptance” piece of the grieving process.  Obviously it was tough to lose my dad at only 60 years old and I’ve done a lot of thinking about it.  While I’m still making my way there, I know ultimately that life isn’t going to be fair and that this ordeal will make me stronger.

17) “Everyone” – Van Morrison

The third and final song used in The Royal Tenenbaums (not meant to imply dad was anything like Royal).  I loved how it ended the film, as the characters moved on from the experiences and how that was ultimately a good thing.  Also the Moondance album this is from got a lot of play growing up.

18) “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life” – Monty Python (From the film Monty Python’s Life of Brian)

Like it was going to end with anything else.  Dad turned me on to Monty Python and their brilliant comedy when I was a teenager and it was a major building block for my sense of humor and the way I’d see the world.  While we feel pain for what we’ve lost in funerals, we also need to remember how much good they brought us.

There are of course dozens, if not hundreds, of more songs I could’ve put in but for an hour’s worth of material, I think he would’ve liked it.  It was obviously the toughest playlist I’ve ever had to assemble, but it needed to be done.  He would’ve wanted something carefully and thoughtfully curated because that is some small bit of his legacy carrying on to me.  Of course I got a lot more out of my dad than that, but it is something like this that gives me a little comfort as I continue to process life without him.