Legacy Matters

"Please don't bury me to My Way"

'The appeal of My Way lies in the way it offers not just absolution but glorification to the perpetrator of all the most dastardly deeds, reassuring the selfish that they are courageous and the thuggish that they are noble.'

What could be less fitting for a funeral? How can so many of us wish to be despatched to our Maker with this hymn to our bloody-minded selfishness echoing around our coffins?

Tom Utley on why hymns are better than pop songs at funerals

According to this week's survey by Co-Operative Funeralcare, the number of send-offs accompanied by pop music has increased from 55 per cent to 58 per cent over the past four years, while hymns are sung at only 35 per cent of funerals, down from 41 per cent in 1995.
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But in my old-fashioned way, I can't help feeling it cheapens the value of a human life to mark its end with music chosen exclusively from the popular culture of the moment, here today and gone tomorrow, without giving eternity a look-in.
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Another advantage of the sacred over the secular is that we can all sing along to a well-known hymn without embarrassment.

But when a pop-song is played in a church or a crematorium chapel, nobody joins in.
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That's because it's impossible for a congregation to sing along with My Way without sounding like one of Craig's nightmare karaoke evenings, just as mourners can't join in with You'll Never Walk Alone (number nine in the Co-Operative's top ten) without sounding like a crowd of Liverpool football fans. So everyone just has to listen in gloomy silence.

It may sound an odd thing to say, but a good funeral should be a joyful occasion, as well as a sad one  -  and nothing lifts the heart higher than to hear a entire congregation belting out with one voice a rousing favourite from Hymns Ancient and Modern: Rock Of Ages, Fight The Good Fight, Dear Lord And Father Of Mankind. . .