Is it still called a funeral if you aren't being buried?
I'd like mine to be called an osaraba party, which I'm sure is atrocious grammar (because there's actually an idiomatic phrase for a real "going away party"), but whatever -- in Japanese, (o)saraba means a farewell (the "o" is an honorific used with certain words, in certain forms). ...and now you also know the meaning of my tag, yay!
So at my "funeral", there shouldn't be ONLY sad music played, but because I am overly enamored of epically sad music/lyrics in general, these are my top two choices; they are guaranteed to make (me) you(?) shed a tear.
Stan Rogers' Northwest Passage
Fave lines: tracing one warm line through a land so wild and savage
I love that line so much I had part of it
tattooed on my wrist. And basically, the whole fucking song is an amazing adventure relived every time I hear it (
lyrics here).
Click to view
Sakamoto Kyu's 上を向いて歩こう (Ue wo Muite Arukou) ["I Look Up When I Walk"]
Fave lines: ue wo muite arukou / namida ga koborenai you ni / nakinagara arukuu / hitoribotchi no yoru (i look up as i walk / so that the tears won't fall / though the tears well up as i walk / tonight i'm alone)
Japanese romaji & English translation of lyrics
here.
I can never articulately describe how sad and beautiful this song is and it bugs me SO EFFING MUCH that it was called "Sukiyaki Song" in the 60s when it crossed over to the US, and then that the "English version(s)" fell so flat in comparison to the original.
Click to view
List of all days.