Music is a wonderful memory tool for transporting the listener back in time, and if you layer that with personal lyrics then you can have a very meaningful result. For my Dad’s funeral I created a musical tribute which combined stories from his life with music that was either a favourite of his, or appropriate for the story.
The first excerpt (Side A) is a story that typifies Dad’s behavior. Rather than join the family on a much faster journey from UK to Berlin Germany, he took a ferry across the English channel so that he could drive while listening to his audio books. For this custom song, I used Gilbert and Sullivan’s ‘Pirate King’ from Pirates of Penzance, as he was a big fan of their operettas.
The second excerpt (Side B) was a favouite pastime of his. He had stayed in touch with many of his colleagues at Culham Laboratory and travelled to Oxfordshire every Friday to play tennis, table tennis and golf. He could treat himself to food that he usually wouldn’t touch, such as chips. For this song, the lyrics worked really well with the ‘Happy Days’ theme tune.
