Most popular funeral songs [by David Lehman]

In the age of sabermetrics, they ("they, they who are known as they," as Kenward Elmslie has it), have tallied up the songs (and versions of same) most popular to play in funerals. Click here for a full run-down, or take away these teasers.

— Sinatra leads the pack with "My Way." 

— Both Richard Rodgers and Harold Arlen are represented in the top ten, though the most popular version of Arlen's "Over the Rainbow" is said to be by Eve Cassidy rather than the star of "The Wizard of Oz" — and people would apparently rather hear Gerry and the Pacemakers sing "You'll Never Walk Alone" than, say, John Raitt.

— Nat King Cole's "Unforgettable" comes in at number ten.

— — Vera Lynn's "We'll Say Goodbye" makes the list, which reminds me that the song puts in an appearance at the end of "The Singing Detective" — which makes exceedingly smart use of songs popular in the year of the action, 1945: "Peg o My Heart," "Accentuate the Positive," "I've Got You Under My Skin," "It Might As Well Be Spring," "Into Each Life Some Rain Must Fall" . . .but I see I'm digressing into a different list. 

According to Mark Stevens and Annalyn Swann, authors of the celebrated biography of Willem de Kooning, say that the painter would have liked to have Sinatra's "Saturday Night is the Loneliest Night in the Week" to be playing at his funeral.

As for me, I'd have an orchestra play Arnold Newman's "Street Scene" as the funeral goers arrive. In a ceremony I would play a recording of Leonard Bernstein's "Some Other Time" as sung by the song's lyricists (Betty Comden, Adolph Green) with Nancy Walker as a third voice. I think that recording is from 1960. As the ceremony ends, I'd like "Goodbye" played by Benny Goodman and His Orchestra. An instrumental. But at a party in someone's apartment later, people will play Sinatra's vocal from the 1958 album, "Sinatra Sings for Only the Lonely."

Meanwhile, I think of the wit of Larry Rivers, the painter who started out as a jazz musician and loved playing his saxophone to the end of his days. Larry arranged to have his own recording of "Everything Happens to Me" to cap his funeral. For Sinatra's memorial the choice was inevitable: his signature song on radio and TV, "Put Your Dreams Away."

from the archive; posted March 17, 2013, reposted February 24, 2021.