Power Trio: 3 Songs to Play At Your Funeral that Are Guaranteed to Make People Cry

I AM PRETTY MORBID, I always have been, not sure why. It could be because of my Transylvanian heritage (a fancy term for Romanian) which made me inclined to believe that Dracula was a part of my family tree, and which led me to dress as a vampire for seven of my 10 formative Halloweens and go to school not only ON Halloween but for a week leading up to it in full vampire regalia. Or because my mom would suck the blood out of my cuts claiming she was indeed a vampire. Or because the first movie my parents took great pride in telling me that I saw was Eraserhead.

Either way, I’ve always been pretty Goth in the truest form except for the fact that I never liked The Smiths and I find Goth subculture to be the cheesiest of all the subcultures. I have always been obsessed with death, as proven from this video of me on Oprah from when I was eight years old, talking about how much I thought about death and blood.

That said, I’m a very cheerful and happy-go-lucky person, and if you met me you probably would never think that I obsess over death. I can’t figure out if death is something I’m afraid of or more intrigued by, but I think about it all the time. I’ve never had any real thoughts of suicide (beyond teenage attention drama), and I am not a depressed person beyond the normal ups and downs of life. This is just part of my character, which I find kind of funny, and I like to joke about it a lot. I LOVE to laugh about death; it is how I cope with it.

So needless to say, I often think about what I would like to have happen with my body when I die. Now that I am married, I am planning for two, so it is interesting to have to make plans with someone else on something you have been thinking about your whole life (some girls dream about their weddings; I think about how I am going to die). My husband and I have agreed that we want to spend “eternity” together—or at least mush our dead carcasses together to symbolically show that we are One.

First we planned that whichever one of us died first we would be exhumed and have the other one plopped in the casket so we can chill in the equivalent of a bus bunk forever and ever and ever. But cemeteries are PACKED and always next to airports and car dealerships. I don’t want to spend my days in the equivalent of a New York tenement building. Plus I think it is nice if it’s cyclical and your body can decompose into nature and you can come back as a tree or an elf or whatever the fuck happens. I have come to the conclusion that I would like to be cremated, and while my husband has said he wants to be shot into space, I am a New York Jew and very neurotic and I have no desire to search the unknown; it’s TOO big. So we agreed that if we are cremated everyone can do what they want: he can have a bit of him shot into space, I can have bits of me sprinkled in all of my favorite places (right now it is Tahiti, but I am sure there will be others), which will compel the people I love to travel to those places, and then a large portion of us can be buried together.

Then I recently saw these urns that turn you into a fucking tree of your choice when you die!! THAT IS IT!!! I want to be a redwood when I die. I think that is pretty cool!! So without further ado, here are three of the songs they can play at the ceremony, funeral, whatever you want to call it when they bury me somewhere (probably northern California where I was born), so I can turn into a giant redwood tree in 200 years. And sorry, but I want everyone to cry (for at least part of it), so this should probably do the trick.

1. “Trouble of The World,” Mahalia Jackson

This is one of my favorite songs in the entire world. Please play it at my funeral. Thank you. You can find Mahalia Jackson singing it in a movie from 1959 called Imitation of Life at, you guessed it, a funeral!!

I remember the first time I heard it, it was in a HBO movie called Subway Stories. That was years before my mother passed away, but it has taken on a much deeper meaning since. And I don’t consider myself a religious person in the least, but this song is my jam. My funeral jam.

I mean yes it is indulgent and dramatic, but I mean fuck it, you’re dead, go for it.

2. “Exit Music For A Film” by Radiohead

Another soundtrack song, this one was from Romeo & Juliet.  I fucking love this song, and we know Romeo & Juliet doesn’t end well, so it is apropos for a funeral as well. I was also a giant Radiohead fan up through this record. During Kid A they kind of lost the plot for me, but Pablo Honey through OK Computer, I was in it to win it, and The Bends is the pinnacle of perfection. This song is probably my favorite Radiohead song; it just slays me.

3. “Adagio” by Albinoni

This is my favorite piece of classical music—this and Mozart’s Requiem but, I mean, that is too ON THE NOSE. When I lived alone and when I am on tour I listen to them EVERY single night to go to sleep. If you look at my iTunes Most Played, it’s this, the Requiem, “Sleepwalk” by Santo & Johnny and “Ave Maria” (please add these to my funeral playlist as well). What better way to go off into eternal sleep then by songs you listen to every night?

But seriously, I would like all three of these songs played at my funeral, along with “Part of Your World” from The Little Mermaid and Tag Team’s “Whoomp There It Is.” Thank you.

 Listen to The Official Weeklings Power Trio Playlist on Spotify.