Worm food music

It happens every few years. I'll hear a new song or an old song in a new context and think, "Now there's a song I'd like sung at my funeral.'' And then, I have to either lengthen or rejigger my burgeoning "last requests'' document.

For years, the list was pretty well set in stone. Bob Dylan's elegiac "Every Grain of Sand,'' Springsteen's rollicking mid-tempo apocalypse "Land of Hope and Dream'' and the old hymn, "Be Thou My Vision.''

But I just heard Willie Nelson sing a mysterious Daniel Lanois composition called "The Maker,'' which is full of visions and something like redemption. If this keeps up, there will have to be an intermission during the funeral service. But who doesn't want a backbeat when they shuffle off this mortal coil.

My only problem will be getting people to sing the songs. I've already asked my wife.

"I'll be too upset to sing,'' Sue said.

"You know, it's not always about you,'' I told her.

She didn't appreciate that.

Only two of my four sons can carry a tune in a bucket, and one of those has a leaky pail at best.
And it's just not the same if the bereaved have to listen to canned music over the PA system at whatever church turns out to handle the pre-grave hootenanny. Maybe we'll just have to give everybody who attends an iPod, turning my funeral into a Grim Reaper version of the Oprah show.

So, it's a bit of a problem. And death turns out to be a big impediment to the philosophy that "If you want something done right, you have to do it yourself.''