Funerals are usually too expensive. I'll probly never get to play one.

Wookie what a great way to use your gift. In respect of your dad.
 
Soens I hear that cremation is less expensive and you can also postpone the service until much later. If you really wanted to save money you could get your own casket or make it. I have heard of some folks who demand that there is no embalming. Here in the states it isn't really a law to do it but unless you state you don't want it they usually do it.
 
This was the first funeral where they made me take money. Since I knew them I didn't want to accept it but it was pretty much forced so I took it.
 
No joke- I was at the scrap yard the other day to get rid of some loose copper I had and there in the yard by the office trailer was a casket. I think I could have probably bought it cheap, but my wife thought it was just wrong to do that. Hey, it's a darned box to be buried in. I don't care where it came from, as long as it wasn't from a robbed grave...come to think of it I never looked inside to see if there was anything in it.
 
Also no bull- Several years ago a local funeral director was arrested. Not sure of the specific charge on the books but essentially he was supposed to be cremating bodies and instead he was putting them other places and forgetting about them, Not sure if the cremation furnace was out of order or what. He had sheds out back loaded with corpses. He was paid good money to do it but for some reason he didn't and someone found out.
 
 

I have. It was the funeral of a friend's dad and I actually didn't really know the girl all that well and had never met her dad. I guess she had been meaning to ask me to visit him in the hospital with my guitar because he was an old rocker and guitarist. Her and her mom thought it might cheer him up to jam with me a bit but then he passed very suddenly. She was an extremely nice person and when she asked me... well I felt weird about it but there was no way I was going to decline. He was into old timey rock and roll (Elvis, Buddy Holly, Roy Orbison, etc...) and I was a crazy punker metalhead who dabbled in some of that kind of thing on my acoustic but I didn't really know many of the tunes. She had seen me do some figured the family would like it. They made some requests and some particular ones that he used to play for his wife (who was obviously attending) so I crammed and practiced like a bastard for the couple days notice I got (did I mention this was a solo gig... yikes!) and tried to make the songs sound reserved and respectful enough for a funeral without totally sucking the life out of them.
 
So that morning I shined up my boots, put on the fanciest clothes I owned, combed back my hair and nervously made my way up to the funeral home. I had never met any of her family before and the only people I knew were her and her friend (whom was actually I girl I knew much better and had introduced us). Well I awkwardly stumbled in with my battered old guit covered in stickers and there's a group of about a dozen people all sitting there in the parlor (his wife, his grown sons, a couple brothers, a sister and their spouses) and they point me to a chair they had set up for me. I was so nervous I quietly said hello and shuffled over with my guitar to the chair and started setting up. I didn't realize until I was sitting down that I was right in front of the casket. Oh man... oh man... the nerves really started going then. I played for about a half hour with the small group watching and would stop in between tunes to chat with them. It was all very casual and intimate. Then it came time to play mum's favorite Elvis song that he used to serenade her with and I flubbed a line. I felt so bad but I did keep going and she didn't seem to mind but man... worst possible time for a brain fart. I mean... it was THEIR song and here is schmucko me trying to create something special and I flubbed. To them it was probably just a stutter and a couple misplaced words but to me that moment will haunt me forever. Yeesh. They were very nice, down to earth people though and it was a very nice service. No pomp, sermons, weeping or heavy duty sullenness. Just some folks remembering their dude and weirdo me feeling like a weirdo.
 
When it came time to leave the mum and daughter tried to give me the money they had promised me and I said I really didn't want it... that I wasn't doing it for the cash but they were insistent that I take it and the daughter said her mum would be insulted if I didn't. I thought I'd better not press the matter because there was a definite salt of the earth/we pay our bills vibe going on and took it. Then I went home and drank heavily because that was one of the nicest but absolutely most stressful gigs I've ever played. I think I became a better musician because of that day and the preceding cram session and really... it's quite the memory.
 
:-/

I'm penciled in to play at mine.  Not sure I'd be able to keep it together enough to play at someone elses...

Hi,
 
Of the over 300 poems I have, there are 4 eulogies.
 
Two of them I would have gladly read them, were the folks near the situation cool to it, but they weren't and they didn't want another wacky artist near them, that took away their beloved. They went for a new age theme instead.
 
One of them, was my mom. But it would probably get the whole family irate, with a couple of us cheering on! Has too much "truth" in it, and it is a searing solo the likes of which Jeff Beck has never dreamed of!
 
The last one, is a sort of satire on Luis Bunuel, and the like, written a la T S Elliot with women coming and going and thinking of Michelangelo and changing diapers in the corner! And a lot of their "inner minds" don't get left behind, so the story (like Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie) goes inside all of their minds and pops from one to the other, and they are all remembering their affairs and such!
 
So, do yourself a favor. Don't invite me to a funeral!
 
For me, they are a moment to enjoy and live. Raise a glass and say Long Live the King. He's dead ... thank god, and now we can continue on!

i played at my mother's memorial.
it was tough.