It’s My Funeral and You’ll Cry if I Want To

Clown-funeralWhat song would you like to have played at your funeral? It’s got to be something uplifting, right? Something that’s going to keep the tears from falling from your mourners’ eyes by reminding them of the good times.

Right?

Wrong.

Fuck that. If you’re coming to my funeral, you’re a convulsing, snottering wreck, or you can get your dry face the fuck out of my swansong. I’m literally going to have doormen throwing people out for not being upset enough:

“Sorry, missus, today’s funeral is a two-wail minimum, and you’ve barely scrounged up a sob. You can leave quietly, or big Davie over there will really give you something to cry about.”

I want ‘Everybody Hurts’ by REM played on a constant loop, and I want people to complain that it’s not sad enough, so someone puts on a tape of dogs being murdered instead. I want people banging on the coffin lid pleading to be buried or burned along with me, because a world without me is simply too nightmarish to contemplate. I want a queue of people lining up to grief-fuck my dead body. I want people openly killing themselves in the aisles. I want my funeral to look like a peasant revolt and sound like a hurricane ripping through a cattery.

I’m really looking forward to my funeral, actually.

I’ve got a few ideas for possible directions I’d like the service to take, if I can get a few volunteers to help make them happen?

  • About half-way through the service, an actor pretending to be a detective bursts in and says, “Jamie was murdered. And someone in this room is the murderer. And we’re not leaving until we find out who.”
  • Pass around song-sheets and make everyone sing organ-accompanied versions of ‘Killing in the Name’ and ‘Straight Outta Compton’.
  • I want a big, fancy funeral, worthy of a president or a pope, so I’m going to secure an obscene amount of funding by allowing Coca Cola to sponsor it. This means that all  speakers will have to endorse the product, but that’s a small price to pay for a platinum gravestone. “I think… the only thing that’s going to… (sniff) get me through this difficult time is the… (sob) sweet, sweet, full-sugar taste of delicious Coca Cola.” My coffin’s going to be shaped like a vending machine. No, scrap that, my gravestone will be a vending machine, so people can enjoy a nice Fanta when they come to cry over my rotting corpse. Plus, everyone’s going to have to wear red and white at the funeral or they’ll be in breach of contract. Passersby will think Santa has died.
  • My face is beamed on to a large screen at the front of the congregation, and I glare out at everybody like an angry God, before yelling: “I’M GOING TO HELL. AND YOU’RE ALL COMING WITH ME! SEAL THESE FUCKERS IN!” At this point, my paid henchmen will lock all the exits, and a smoke machine will start pumping smoke into the room. You’ll just be able to hear my maniacal laughter over the screams.
  • If I’m being cremated, just as the coffin slides out of sight along the conveyor belt and the curtain drops, a stunt-man will run out screaming and covered in flames.
  • Either that or I’ll have speakers in my coffin blasting out the panicked yelps of a trapped cat.
  • I’m going to hire a stand-up comedian for the wake, but they won’t know it’s a wake. They’ll be told it’s a seminar for morticians, and thus will be encouraged to use their sickest material, especially jokes about dead bodies and funerals. I won’t be the only one dead that day.

Thanks in advance, Handinistas.

1 thought on “It’s My Funeral and You’ll Cry if I Want To

  1. Legend my son, as always. I’d definitely enjoy a drink over your rotting corpse, but I think a Bloody Mary would be more suiting. Keep up the good work! X

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