BBC: Final send-off for John Peel
Everyone at the funeral of John Robert Parker Ravenscroft knew it was coming. John Peel - as he was known to millions - had often spoken of Teenage Kicks, by The Undertones, as being the song he wanted played at his funeral. As the opening bars resonated around the 500-year-old St Edmundsbury Cathedral, in Suffolk, it was an emotional end for the family, friends and admirers of the legendary DJ.
A fitting send-off.
For some years now, Jen and I have maintained a tongue-in-cheek list of songs we would like played at our funerals. These incluse:
- Come On Baby, Light My Fire (The Doors)
- Smoke Gets In Your Eyes (The Platters)
- Knock On Wood (Otis Redding)
- Living in a Box (Living in a Box)
- Going Underground (The Jam)
- Down Down (Status Quo)
- Great Balls of Fire (Jerry Lee Lewis)
- You and Me in Paradise (Phil Collins)—over my dead body!
- Good and Gone (The Screaming Blue Messiahs)
- Down in the Ground Where the Dead Men Go (The Pogues)
- Living in the Past (Jethro Tull)
- The Only Way is Up (Yazz)
- I'm On Fire (Bruce Springsteen)
- There She Goes (The La's)
…I could go on, but you get the general idea.
I wonder what song was played at the recently departed Howard Keel's private funeral this week. Oh What a Beautiful Mourning, perhaps?
