5 Mambo Number ...

The number five will be forever tainted, for me, by that earworm that was Mambo Number 5 and that brings me to thoughts of songs and dancing. Sometimes, among the hardest choices that a family makes over the planning period of a funeral, is the songs to play on the day. The notion of what is ‘fitting’ for a funeral comes up often … and I do my best to shoot it down just as often! If you choose it, it is right in my humble opinion!

I sometimes tell families that I plan to have the least appropriate music possible at my service when the time comes – one last expression of my sense of humour by choosing songs that will cause many a head to turn towards my long suffering son, thinking that HE has chosen these monstrosities … and judging him accordingly! I’m thinking the deeply irreverent and inappropriate Right Said Fred’s ‘I’m Too Sexy’ and perhaps the exit of my coffin from sight can be accompanied by Jay-Z telling everyone about how he has ‘99 problems … but a bitch aint one!’ Oh, how I laugh at the thought!

I have worked with clients who have chosen their own music in advance, most doing so with thoughts that it saves their family from those challenging choices … but there are others like me out there too – selecting songs with their sense of humour firmly in play, songs of burning playing out through the crematorium and a few people journeying with Meatloaf as he does his best impression of a bat out of hell. Johnny Cash doesn’t take his fall into a burning ring of fire alone and Frank Sinatra is not the only one who faces those final curtains having lived life their way. Families often request that I issue a disclaimer before the songs chosen with a smirk – please tell everyone that they chose it themselves – no-one wants to be judged for a silly song or a funny tune that strikes the wrong note on the day!

Music can be incredibly poignant though too – I play songs that were wedding first dances, songs that were family anthems and songs with lyrics that bring back treasured moments of girls dancing with their fathers, of connections made on the dancefloor or of those very Glasgow days of the ‘one singer, one song’ and the party piece that they belted out every time. The Kings and Queens of karaoke have their moments, and I have even had the privilege of playing actual recordings from the person themselves. I have said farewell to many a Dancing Queen and Tina Turner sings farewell to many who were Simply the Best … or football obsessed!

Some music choices are the thing of legend – now, this is not one of mine, but one I heard … so how true it is, I couldn’t say … but I heard of one individual who selected the songs for his mother in law’s service and went full Wizard of Oz with the inclusion of bells ringing out ‘ding, dong, the witch is dead’!

Many a west of Scotland romance began with the question are ye dancin’? and connections were made, and broken, by the response. I’ve heard of dancers turned down and of dancefloor mishaps … but also of young men sacrificing their bus money to buy sweeties to share as they saw their dance partners home at the end of the night with a long, dark walk home after that, that was worth it because a second date was secured.

I have told tales of those who jive, those who twist and those who slosh … or only dance when they are sloshed! I told the stories of the young girl who gave herself a lifelong back ache winning the national twist contest, twisting for 24 hours, but who met her life partner on that same dancefloor later that year. I have felt ‘in on the joke’ knowing that the Majestic dance hall was known locally as The Magic Stick and was a bit of a magic wand waved over the youth of the era who met their partners while dancing the night away.

Those who weren’t dancers were often cinema goers, some in the era when a clean jam jar could get you admission … although you were occasionally given first hand evidence of why some cinemas were known as ‘flea pits’ when they sprayed you down with disinfectant on the way to your seats!

Dates became often told tales or secrets only revealed many years later. A favourite story from one family was of Mum and Dad meeting for their first date and of Mum tripping and falling her length as they approached one another after getting off the bus. Dad mentioned regularly, for the next 50 years, that Mum ‘fell for him on their first date’ and the perfect dad joke was born! Another family said that they hadn’t known for years what the details of Mum and Dad’s first date were … because Mum was engaged to someone else at the time and the timeline was blurred after the fact to maintain the cover-up tale!

Occasionally families ask that a hymn be played, for tradition, sometimes sung by Elvis and sometimes by enthusiastic gatherings of family and friends. I remember working with a family where it came as a surprise to me that a hymn was requested – the man was a well-documented heathen, his words, and I struggled to see him enjoying such a traditional offering – but it was ‘what the family always did’ so Abide With Me was requested. On the day, we got to our feet and got three lines in … when the fire alarm went off. It was a false alarm, the crematorium staff assured us, we could continue with the service. So we did. We began again with the hymn … got a few lines further in this time before the fire alarm sounded again. I kid you not, we were fire alarm interrupted three times before the deceased’s brother shouted over to the coffin ‘aye, all right, we’ve heard you!’ We began again, skipped the hymn, and continued uninterrupted to the end. We laughed together at the exit doors, all of us, until we were almost in tears, at the thought that we had been interrupted by an unhappy atheist determined to convince us to skip the hymn!