RockOm

This week, considering that it's Halloween and all, we've decided to share with you articles about the darker side of music, death, and all that is frightening and spooky. After all, part of spirituality is dealing with and coming to grips with death, so we wanted to help provide you with some musical inspiration for your Halloween weekend.

Below that we've also included our normal RockOm Roundup links, all that's going on around the world in the areas of song and spirit...

Halloween Roundup

• A Halloween Playlist: The Scariest Albums Of All Time - "I've created a list of the scariest albums ever made. It wasn't easy (seriously, I could've included every black-metal album ever made or Avril Lavigne's The Best Damn Thing), but rather than focus on visceral screams, I went for ephemeral chills. These are psychological thrillers — dense, raw, positively horrifying albums, guaranteed to turn your Halloween into a total fright-fest." (mtv.com)

• Scary songs to put a shiver in your Halloween party - "It’s Halloween and time for some scary songs – and, no, I don’t mean Bobby 'Boris' Pickett’s 'Monster Mash.' I mean really scary songs. Here are 20, arranged chronologically, that’ll give you the chills..." (leisureblogs.chicagotribune.com)

• Slayer to stream entire new album on MySpace Music for Halloween weekend - "Thrash legends Slayer will take over MySpace's Music portal this Halloween weekend to promote their upcoming album, World Painted Blood." (examiner.com)

• What are the scariest rock songs ever?- "Aside from the truly frightening new release by the Backstreet Boys or Bob Dylan's new Christmas album, what are the scariest rock songs to tingle your spine and rattle your senses?" (blog.mlive.com)

Miscellaneous Music & Spirituality Links

• The RZA: Hip-Hop's Prophet - "In his new book, Tao of the Wu, RZA tells the story of his own rise, from the streets of Staten Island to the top of the hip-hop world. He describes the lessons he learned about life, music and spirituality--many of them hard--in the simple, elegant prose of a hip-hop poet." (pbs.org)

• Bruce Almighty - "Springsteen saved me when I was a suburban Cleveland teenager, bored and unconsciously seeking fever and fire. My mom advised channeling that desire into the Catholic Church by praying more. 'Mass is what you bring to it,' she said." (philly.org)

• What makes music beautiful? Alfred Brendel knows - "Interpreters should never assume that understanding the structure of a work might automatically give them insight into the work’s character, atmosphere and spiritual state." (artsblog.freedomblogging.com)

• Sting: Obama best person to handle world's 'mess'- Sting says, "My hope is that we can start talking about real issues and not caring about whether God cares about your hemline or your color ... We are here to evolve as one family, and we can't be separate anymore." (news.yahoo.com)

RockOm Round-up is a quick glance at what's going on around the world in the areas of music and spirituality...

• What music would you choose to die to? - "Ghoulish question, I know, but someone asked me the other day and I keep wondering. The concept of music to die to was introduced to me as a child by Gervase Hughes’s essay on Beethoven in his book Fifty Famous Composers, still the best short introduction to classical music." (blogs.telegraph.co.uk)
• Derek Webb's new album pushes some hot buttons - "Some have accused [Christian Musician] Webb of using profanity to grab attention — not unheard of in ministry. Webb defends the use of the word as an effective use of his primary tool: language. And he's willing to be at the center of controversy, something the former Caedmon's Call member is used to." (kentucky.com)
• American and Muslim, Sufi mystics band goes global - "With a discombobulating mix of blonde hair and ecstatic cries of "Allah, Allah!", the members of Islamic band Debu sway on stage at a strip mall on the edge of Indonesia's capital. Led by a clutch of American siblings, the band of adherents of Sufi Islamic mysticism have become a perennial hit during the holy month of Ramadan here in the world's largest Muslim-majority country." (Google/AFP)
• Hip-hop innovator Russell Simmons seeks world change - "Russell Simmons may not change the world single-handedly, but it sure looks like he's trying. At 51, the hip-hop pioneer, entrepreneur and philanthropist has opened his wallet to causes from funding art and meditation in schools to promoting Muslim/Jewish dialogue to empowering youth to create social and political change in their communities." (chron.com)
• "George Harrison of Counting Crows" Releases Solo Album - "Counting Crows founding member and longtime bassist Matt Malley describes his first solo CD, 'The Goddess Within,' as 'intentionally Beatle-esque.' 'I was always considered the 'George Harrison of Counting Crows,'' Malley said. 'I was always flying off to India to meditate and learn Indian music during breaks from touring or recording. This is the result.'" (reuters.com)

By Tom Crenshaw and Trevor Harden

Acoustic-reggae rocker Trevor Hall's new self-titled album (Trevor Hall, Vanguard Records) features guest performances by Colbie Caillat, Krishna Das and Matisyahu. Over its 12 fantastic tracks, he explores themes of spiritual lightheartedness ("Internal Heights"), death and surrender ("Who You Gonna Turn To?"), unity between faiths ("Unity"), the story of Krishna ("Volume"), his accepting of all spiritual paths as one truth ("Many Roads") and more.

RockOm met up with Trevor at his CD release party in his hometown of Hilton Head Island, SC to discuss his spiritual practice, a chance encounter in India and themes from the new album.

RockOm: How does it feel to be in the Vanguard Records family now?

Trevor Hall: Vanguard is great. They’ve really been amazing. They’re much smaller than my previous label but it makes it more of a family vibe. They’ve been very helpful with promotion and hooking me up with some nice people and have been wonderful to work with. I’m really looking forward to seeing the rest of what they do with the record.

RO: One of your classic songs, “Lime Tree”, made it’s way back onto your new album. What was the decision to include that again?

TH: That’s such a popular song and it’s only on one EP from a long time ago so we wanted to formally release it and redo it – I’ve grown a lot since then. We had my friend Colbie Callait come in and sing on it which was great and it just fits the record I think. We only redid that one and “31 Flavors” but the rest of the album is all new material.

RockOm: Let’s get into some of those songs. In “Who You Gonna Turn To” you repeat “Surrender to the Most High; surrender, I say surrender.” For people who are not sure how to do that, what would you say to them? What does surrender look like or mean to you?

TH: Well, I’m trying to do that myself! [laughs] But before we jump into the songs it’s important to understand that a lot of the songs aren’t where I’m at presently. They’re all speaking to me too, you know? I’m singing what I’m hearing so they’re all lessons for me too – speaking to me, teaching me. I’m trying to surrender, too, so I don’t know what I could say to other people. But from what I’ve heard from people above me is that surrender is a very powerful thing. Especially in music - music automatically demands a state of surrender when you listen to it. Or if you’re in a live setting, you can’t dance or let yourself go unless you surrender to the sounds. Music is a very powerful instrument in helping with the process of surrendering, I think.

“Who You Gonna Turn To” is a song that is obviously about dying but it’s maybe not bodily death. Maybe it’s more of an ego death or something. Who you gonna turn to at the end of your life when all this is gone? Are you going to turn to your money or your friends? You come alone, you go alone. It’s a song about death but I think it’s a very positive song because it’s saying “I know who I’m going to turn to.” “My mama’s on her lion and papa's home in Zion” – the eternal Mother and Father, that’s who I’m going to turn to.

RO: On your previous albums, images of the divine seemed to be mostly (though not entirely) feminine - such as Durga and Shakti - but it seems like in this album there are some references to a father/masculine divine who often is referenced alongside Zion. I was curious if that's been a new development in your spiritual journey and/or if your friendship with Matisyahu had some influence in that.

TH: I don’t know, I just think that’s what was coming through. Where the Mother is, the Father is too. Where the Father is, the Mother is too. I don’t know if it was another aspect of my inner life but that was just my meditation at the time. I think I had been meditating on the “divine Family” rather than one parent. I don’t know if there’s anything “secret” there or not – I hope so! [laughs]

RO: In the song “House” you sing “far beyond what you call God.” Do you think we limit ourselves sometimes by holding an image in our head of a personification of God when in reality there could be so much broader of an understanding?

TH: I think it can. But there’s so many different ways to love God. They’re all the same goal to me. I don’t know what other people think, but to me it’s one goal. Some people worship God with form, some people worship God without form. Some people say that worshiping God with form is limiting God, but in my experience I think that all ways eventually lead there. It doesn’t matter what you’re doing as long as you love God. That’s what I think. It doesn’t matter if you’re married or not married, it only matters how much you love God. It doesn’t matter if you’re in the city or town or temple, it just matters how much you love God.

I was watching this movie the other day about one of my favorite singers and they interviewed this fruit vendor in India. She sang this devotional song and it just blew my mind. And she’s a fruit vendor – do you know what I mean? She doesn’t have a garb on; she isn’t a nun. Wherever you are, that’s it. I just think that love of God is the highest thing, so whatever helps with that and keeps you open minded is all right in my book.

RO: On “My Baba” - your tribute to Neem Karoli Baba – you have chant master Krishna Das singing on the chorus. I'm sure that was a joy and pleasure to have him agree to back you up on that song. Tell us what having him on the record means to you as well as how that came to be.

TH: That was big time! [laughs] I was very happy. I had only met Krishna Das one time and the way I had met him was kind of funny. I had talked to him on the internet and we have a mutual friend. He was going to India the same time I was and he sent me an email that said, let me know where you’re going and your dates because maybe while we’re there we can link up. I said I would let him know but I never did just because I was so busy and couldn’t remember. It was my first trip to India so I was a little antsy and so I never got around to emailing him. So one night we’re in Rishikesh, which is a little town in the Himalayas right by the Ganga, that is absolutely gorgeous. We went into this little café to eat dinner and my friend said, “Hey, there’s Krishna Das.” [laughs] I turn and over at the next table was Krishna Das and all these people were around him asking to get pictures. He looked kind of bummed out, like he wanted to get away. So I waited until everyone left and I went up to him and said, “Excuse me, Krishna Das?” and he groaned, “Yes?” I said, “I don’t mean to bother you, but my name is Trevor.” And he was like, “Trevor! Why didn’t you email me?!” [laughs] We talked for a little and found out we were going different directions but we saw each other and it was kind of like Baba’s play. It’s just so funny. It’s the only time I’ve seen him physically.

But with the album I had this song called “My Baba.” I really wanted to do a song for [Neem Karoli] Baba because he’s my biggest inspiration. As the song was coming the chorus happened to be “Hari, Hari, Mahadev.” As we were going into the studio I thought, man it would be cool to get Krishna Das to sing on that. So my manager contacted him and they talked for a while. When he heard the song he thought it was great and said “Let’s do it.” He didn’t come to LA because he was busy but we sent the track to him and he recorded it and sent it back. He’s so awesome; he didn’t ask for anything, he’s such a great guy. It was a big thing for me because I love Krishna Das and he’s part of the Neem Karoli Baba family. That’s probably one of my favorite songs on the whole record.

RO: In "Many Roads," one of the lines that resonated with me most is "Are you made from magic? Are you made from wishful thinking?" As people of faith, those questions still come up, don't they? As much of our life and lifestyle are dedicated to serving and loving God, there's still those moments that we have to ask whether it's all a figment of our imagination. What do you do when the doubt comes?

TH: It seems to come often, doesn’t it? [laughs] You just have to have faith. Baba said that many things go into one's spiritual practice but the three main ingredients are faith, devotion and patience. For me it’s hard to remember it’s not an overnight process. You have to plant the seed, you have to water the seed, you have to cultivate the land and cultivate your mind. You get impatient but that’s where you’re growing. You know, there are yogis in India who have been doing this for thousands of lives. They’re up in the caves chanting God’s name 24 hours a day and here we are – you do a mala in the morning and you’re like, “Hey, where is it [enlightenment]?” It’s just you have to be patient. Baba also says that we may forget, but God never forgets about his devotees. God never forgets about us even if we’re doubting so you just have to believe. I mean, where can you go [away from God]?

RO: In the song “Volume” you talk about the silence that can be found. How would you best tell someone to begin finding some silence amidst all of life’s noise?

TH: Oh God, you’re asking the wrong person. [laughs] My mind is like a freakin’ jukebox and I don’t even know what CDs are inside it.

RO: But you find it onstage at times?

TH: Yes, well everybody has a way of finding silence - whether you meditate, whether you sit by yourself and listen to your breath or listen to music. But for me music is very powerful and there’s a place where the sound is coming through and you’re just listening to the sound. When you’re singing you’re listening and you don’t feel like you’re doing anything. It doesn’t happen often but when it does, whew, it’s heavy. Sometimes outside it’s so loud but inside it’s just so silent. Like, I feel that in a lot of places in America, outside it’s silent but inside we’re not very relaxed. But in India it was very different for me – outside there was noise and all of this stuff but inside people have a little bit of silence. So it’s kind of a trick - Mother’s trick, an illusion. You have to be careful, she can trick you. [laughs]

But with “Volume” the chorus is “Close your eyes and hold me and no harm will befall you.” Krishna said that to the gopas, his friends in the field. “That’s what is spoken to me when I turn down the volume.” You can’t hear it until you quiet down.

RO: You’re going to have a lot of young people here at the concert tonight. Some of that is going to bleed over. They’re going to look at you and go, “This cat’s got his act together” – little do they know… [laughs]

TH: Little do they know the TV I watch [laughs] and the things I do in my off time.

RO: But if they listen to the words to that song, it gives them lots to relate to.

TH: The whole song really is about Krishna. “Rain comes down but he holds the mountain; Blue like sky, can you tell me why?” Krishna’s skin is blue and then my favorite story about Krishna is where he holds up the mountain. When he was a young cowherd boy in the fields, his village would pray to Indra, god of rain, to give them rain for their crops. One day Krishna said, “Does Indra accept your offering? Does he come down and eat it with his own mouth? There’s no need to do this. Just believe in me and everything will be fine.” So Indra has a little bit of ego and gets very mad that this little boy is taking away his worship. So he holds the rains and then one day he just lets it flood. All the people in the village are very worried. They think they’re going to drown and that Indra is going to kill them. So they go to Krishna and say, “You have to help us. Save us!” So in Vrindavan there’s a place called Govardhana Hill and you can go there today. And Krishna lifted up the mountain with his pinkie and held it above his head. There are many famous pictures of this. All the villagers come under the mountain and they have a big festival for seven days where they eat and drink and be merry. It really humbled Indra.

So that’s the opening line, but all of the references in “Volume” are about Krishna’s life.

RO: The album’s opening song is “Internal Heights.” What does it mean for you to "maintain internal heights"?

TH: That’s just it right there. That is the goal of my life. Where does your strength come from? The eternal Giver. Maintain internal heights. “To see the transcendent Being, got to keep your hands clean.” Maintain internal heights. Internal heights, always, everywhere you go. It’s hard but this song is a remembering. This is the first song and sets the theme for the whole record.

RO: In last year’s RockOm interview you said, “Everything is meditation.” Is everything still meditation for you?

TH: Yes! [laughs] Sometimes you don’t remember it’s meditation but then it gets you and you’re like. Oh! There it is again – that lesson! Too many lessons!

Links:

Trevor Hall's website

Trevor Hall on iTunes

Vanguard Records

Photography By:

Kellie McCann Photography

"We are all notes in this eternal song; God plays his flute, we all dance along." So sings Trevor Hall on his latest album - a self-titled release, available today (7/28/09). Trevor is a longtime friend of RockOm, having been featured several times on the site and it's no wonder why. His outstanding music is a blend of the sacred and secular - melding funky, acoustic-reggae jams with deep, spiritually significant lyrics.

Released by the legendary Vanguard Records, Trevor's new album features guest performances by Colbie Caillat, Krishna Das and Matisyahu. Over its 12 fantastic tracks, he explores themes of spiritual lightheartedness ("Internal Heights"), death and surrender ("Who You Gonna Turn To?"), unity between faiths ("Unity"), the story of Krishna ("Volume"), his accepting of all spiritual paths as one truth ("Many Roads") and more.

Despite these heavy themes, however, Trevor's music never comes off as preachy, but rather as humble, gentle and exploratory. The music gently jumps from hard rock to reggae to contemplative ballads and back again. Bathing in these songs of divine love and devotion, the listener is transported both to the transcendent beyond as well as to what lies within.

Fans of spiritually-significant lyrics and up-beat acoustic rock owe it to themselves to pick up a copy of this album. And even if those labels don't fit you exactly, it's nearly impossible to not be moved by this landmark musical accomplishment.  Purchase your copy of Trevor Hall today at iTunes, Amazon.com or other retailers.

In addition, be sure to keep your eyes peeled for an exclusive interview with Trevor Hall, right here at RockOm.net in a few short weeks.

www.TrevorHallMusic.com

A behind-the-scenes look at the song "Unity"

By Tom Crenshaw, tom@rockom.net

Music can be the glue that bonds people together from all walks of life. Even in death music can play a powerful role in celebrating life and remembering those who have passed on.

An old friend and a former band mate died a short time ago. Ralph Robinson never achieved fame and glory, yet he was quite the musician who loved music and his drums more than anything. By all accounts he was born to be a percussionist and from a very early age threw himself into his music performing in bands as a teenager, before heading off to a performing arts college to further pursue his passion. After college he went on to accomplish great things with his music, performing as a timpanist with the Salzburg Chamber Orchestra in Austria, the Berlin Philharmonic in Germany, and the New York Philharmonic.

After his stint as a classical performer he turned to the punk scene in NYC, giving up concert halls for the likes of CBGB’s and other notorious night clubs up and down the east coast. I first met him in the late 80s and we soon were playing hard-core Rock and Metal together on the road for several years.

He had requested there be no formal services or a funeral. Instead, he wanted his friends to come together and do what he loved most - play music. We did just that this past weekend in his hometown and remembered him as he wished. The nightclub hosting the reception was filled with his friends from all walks of life - black, white, young, and old came together and remembered him as he wished.

Ralph was the reason we were all there and music was the most appropriate way to celebrate. Celebrating his life in this way was far different than going to a funeral but gave closure at the same time. In fact that closure was given in a very powerful way because no one was sad - it was a celebration of his life. I think that's the way we will remember him from now on... through this celebration and his love for music.

As part of the healing process after a death we all grieve and have a strong desire to remember the most special moments in life we shared with the one(s) who have left us. We naturally gather as families and with friends and recall what we loved most about those people. Music plays an important role in all cultures and societies in not only celebrating birth, but in signifying death and transitioning. The circle is unbroken when we gather and use music as a healing source in remembering those who have gone on before us.

Sting is set to release a new CD on October 27 entitled If On a Winter’s Night… The album will feature two original works as well as a collection of traditional songs, carols, and lullabies from the British Isles. The entire album is based on Sting's affection for the winter season. "The theme of winter is rich in inspiration and material," Sting said in a statement released on his website. "By filtering all of these disparate styles into one album I hope we have created something refreshing and new."

Sting goes on to further explain the allure of winter stating, "Our ancestors celebrated the paradox of light at the heart of the darkness, and the consequent miracle of rebirth and the regeneration of the seasons."

Sting's lyrics often carry solemn themes-he has written about the dangers of nuclear energy, the "disappeared" of Chile, and about death and destruction. He has also infused his songs with transformative and uplifting words and isn't shy about his spirituality (think "Brand New Day," "A Thousand Years," "Ghost Story," and "If You Love Somebody Set Them Free").

As we await the release of If On a Winter's Night..., let us take a moment and allow Sting to speak for himself on the subject of spirituality through these various interview excerpts we’ve compiled [various sources].

"I've never accepted any of the categories of music as being anything but artificial labels, and I see music as a common language that links all cultures, races, and historical periods. I enjoy moving through that continuum without any self-consciousness or feelings of boundaries. It's more fun that way."

"Spirituality is becoming increasingly important to me as I get older. Philosophy, about what happens after death is particularly fascinating to me."

"The only meditation I would have done before (Ashtanga yoga) would be in the writing of songs. In the composing of music you have to enter virtually a trance state to transmit songs. I don't think you write songs. They come through you. It's trusting that they exist out there and you have to be the transmitter. For that you need a certain amount of mental purity. Yoga is just a different route to that same process. You're taking something from our higher selves and putting it to use in normal life, I think."

"I hear music all the time. Sometimes it drives me totally crazy. In absolute silence I hear music. I hear music, I hear rhythms, I hear bird song. I live in an aural world. It's never totally empty."

"I think in my life, to a large extent, I've only paid lip service to a spiritual life. I was brought up as a Catholic and went to church every week and took the sacraments. I was educated that way, but it never really touched the core of my being. As I get older I find that I am unwilling to accept an existential universe without a God. It doesn't actually make logical sense anymore. To me I feel that there has to be a higher level of compassion, of understanding, than merely a human one. It's embodied in all of us. I just think we have to decode it. The Godhead, or whatever you want to call it - it's better not to give it a name, is encoded in our being. There are various methods of decoding it and I think that Yoga is perhaps one of them. Music is another, [as is] meditation and prayer."

"What I'm facing at the moment in my spiritual life is the enormity of [the possibility of manifesting love and compassion], which I find quite terrifying. I'm working with that enormity. It's certainly not easy. It's not an easy path. Like Yoga, the spiritual life is actually very difficult."

"Up until quite recently I've actually thought I was immortal. As ridiculous as that sounds, most young people think they're immortal. Particularly when things are going well, when you're successful, when you're happy and you have a lot of stuff going for you. How could you possibly die? The bad news is, of course you can. And the good news too, is that you die. I think we have to embrace the idea. We have to accept that it's as natural as being born, as natural as breathing out, as breathing in. It's part of life. Sometimes I fight against it, as we all do, but acceptance, I think, is the most positive thing we can do. That doesn't mean being miserable or totally obsessed with the idea to one's detriment. If anything, I think, the acceptance of death gives you more of a stake in life, in living life happily, as it should be lived. Living for the moment. I'm learning this. Again, I'm not speaking as someone who has reached satori or anything else. I'm a student."

Sources: Yoga Journal Magazine by Ganga White and Stephen Dalton.
AOL Interview 1995

Compared to Life (if the familiar dyad even makes sense), Death is famously dispassionate. Death doesn't care when, or why, or how, or who. Death can not care, because caring is the job of the living. And so choice has precious little to do with death, which is why we clutch at whatever choices we do have about our final moments. We usually don't have the luxury of the death we would prefer, and so we do insignificant and desperate things like making living wills and funeral playlists, pre-emptive strikes at the infinite unyielding unconcern of nonexistence.

Some cultures don't consider suicide to be as tasteless as ours does (thanatophobic and euphemistic, we have a long history of plucking out our own offending eyes without mourning our lost sight). Here and now, we can do little to decide the terms of our passage without distressing the ones we love.

We can, however, write declarations of love that stamp a seal of determination on our last breath. Tenderly capturing his request to die in the presence of his beloved, Elbow frontman Guy Garvey penned an exemplar of such quietly raging hopeful confessions: the organ ballad, "Switching Off." Painting precious, half-iambic metaphors of his last night's fading lights from the perch of candid youth, Garvey imagines a distant and peaceful shutdown - and his partner's place beside him, amidst the creeping noise and the crumbling synchrony.

Elbow - "Switching Off"

Last of the men in hats hops off the coil
And a final scene unfolds inside
Deep in the rain of sparks behind his brow
Is a part replayed from a perfect day
Teaching her how to whistle like a boy
In love's first blush

Is this making sense?
What am I trying to say?
Early evening June, this room and a radio play
This I need to save
I choose my final thoughts today
Switching off with you

All the clocks give in, and the traffic fades
And the insects like...like a neon choir
The instant fizz, connection made
And the curtains sigh in time with you

You're the only sense the world has ever made
Early evening June, this room and radio play
This I need to save
I choose my final scene today
Switching off...

Ran to ground, ran to ground for a while there
But I came off pretty well, I came off pretty well...

You're the only sense the world has ever made
This I need to save
A simple trinket locked away
I choose my final scene today
Switching off with you

This song is one of the truest love letters I've ever heard, daisies growing from a double grave, holding hands to die of old age, because "You're the only sense the world has ever made." Whatever happens between now and then, God save this feeling, this certainty and adoration, togetherness and memory, this "simple trinket locked away," until I can look back and smile at its accurate prediction.

We may not get to choose how we die, but we can hope against hope that we die in someone's arms. We can't carry anything across that threshold, but we can carry our cares right up to its silver edge. We can adorn our lives with these solemn vows, giving worth to each living moment. We can prove that death is in fact meaningful, because it is by death that we determine what is valuable. Romance as I know it is a skull with rose window eyes, burgeoning even as it breaks. And so there is nothing more romantic than telling someone you want them there when you die.

"Switching Off" is a perfect portrait of recognizing what matters. It is the beauty of yearning listening as it strains against fadeout. It'd be a strange song to play at my funeral - bringing the particulars of my death into sharp focus, where wishes may not hold against facts - but I would put it on my funeral playlist anyway, because it so gracefully captures for me the timeless splendor of love. Because we may not get to choose, but we can always hope to choose. And after years of arguing for the concrete value of choice, I am only now beginning to understand the diaphonous, glistening value of hope.

Previous articles in this series:

PART I: The Soundtrack To Your Funeral, I: Playing DJ To The Bereaved
PART II: The Soundtrack To Your Funeral, II: Putting Death in a Box
PART III: The Soundtrack To Your Funeral, III: Do It For The World
PART IV: The Soundtrack To Your Funeral, IV: Cake's Four Noble Truths
PART V: The Soundtrack To Your Funeral, V: Our Forgotten Vow
PART VI: The Soundtrack To Your Funeral, VI: Takin' Life So Serious

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Michael Garfield is intent on demonstrating that everything is equally art, science, and spiritual practice - to revive cultural and individual investment in the renaissance thinking that finds equal value in thinking and feeling, description and experience. Working as a scientific illustrator and essayist by day, and a live electronic musician and performance painter by night, Michael divides his attentions between exploring and celebrating the vast complex vibratory spectacle that is our musical universe. His work has been featured at integralnaked.org, realitysandwich.com, and paullonely.com, and in Cause & Effect Magazine, iMAGE Magazine, and H+. Links to his painting gallery, live and studio recordings, and visionary music blog can be found at myspace.com/michaelgarfield.

Discuss this article

From here on out, each installment of this column will feature at least one (and occasionally several) songs that I would put on my own funeral playlist. The first two go together - both on the album (where they appear back to back), and thematically (because they articulate complimentary forms of wisdom).

Cake - End of the Movie
People you love
Will turn their backs on you
You'll lose your hair
Your teeth
Your knife will fall out of its sheath
But you still don't like to leave before the end of the movie
People you hate will get their hooks into you
They'll pull you down
You'll frown
They'll tar you and drag you through town
But you still don't like to leave before the end of the movie
No you still don't like to leave before the end of the show
People you hate will get their hooks into you
They'll pull you down
You'll frown
They'll tar you and drag you through town
But you still don't like to leave before the end of the movie
No you still don't like to leave before the end of the show

Cake - Tougher Than It Is
Well there is no such thing as you
It doesn't matter what you do
The more you try to qualify
The more it all will pass you by
Some people like to make life a little tougher than it is
Some people like to make life a little tougher than it is
Well the more you try to shake the cat
The more the thing will bite and scratch
It's best I think to leave its fur and to listen to its silky purr
Some people like to make life a little tougher than it is
Some people like to make life a little tougher than it is
Well there is no such thing as you
It doesn't matter what you do
The more you try to qualify
The more it all will pass you by
Some people like to make life a little tougher than it is
Some people like to make life a little tougher than it is
Some people like to make life a little tougher than it is

It's a little weird to hear something so profound from Cake, those kings of swinger kitsch and self-conscious, ironic cool, but I'm always up for such a pleasant surprise. "End of the Movie" reminds me not to bitch so much about living if, no matter how much I suffer, I never ask for the check before dessert. Contrasting John McCrea's deadpan delivery with bouncing, cartoony concertina and mandolin accompaniment, it also seems to poke fun at my clinging to a world that abuses me; I can't listen to this without a poignant laugh at the human condition. One hand slaps me around and reminding me of the gruesome truth, while the other holds me like an infant. This song states the double-bind of life with such utter simplicity, such matter-of-factness, that it leaves no room for rebuttal. There's no way to argue either point, and there's no reason to. Because: shhhh...it's okay.

And then we trade out for "Tougher Than It Is," which wakes up in bits and pieces like a stirring groovy angel and then pops without warning straight into a divine transmission along the lines of what a person might expect, were this laconic pop group temporarily possessed by the Buddha. This is Cake's version of The Beatles' "Tomorrow Never Knows," suddenly and surprisingly deep and wise, after an album's worth of goofing around. Paired with "End of the Movie," this couplet is an excellent presentation of the First, Second, and Third Noble Truths of Buddhism (that we suffer, that we suffer because of craving and ignorance, and that we can transcend suffering). "Tougher Than It Is" is also kind of set of pop "pointing-out instructions" - a quick-and-easy version of the Fourth Noble Truth that reminds us how to reconnect with our enlightened awareness (through attentiveness and openness, rather than trying to push around a universe that tends to fight back).

Oh, Cake. Few other artists have rendered humanity with such ruthless acceptance. Almost none have managed to do it with such catchy tunes. These two songs would be the cathartic first play at my funeral - just tragic enough to squeeze the tears out, and just comic enough to loosen people up for the rest of the playlist.

More on that soon.

Previous articles in this series:

PART I: The Soundtrack To Your Funeral, I: Playing DJ To The Bereaved
PART II: The Soundtrack To Your Funeral, II: Putting Death in a Box
PART III: The Soundtrack To Your Funeral, III: Do It For The World

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Michael Garfield is intent on demonstrating that everything is equally art, science, and spiritual practice - to revive cultural and individual investment in the renaissance thinking that finds equal value in thinking and feeling, description and experience. Working as a scientific illustrator and essayist by day, and a live electronic musician and performance painter by night, Michael divides his attentions between exploring and celebrating the vast complex vibratory spectacle that is our musical universe. His work has been featured at integralnaked.org, realitysandwich.com, and paullonely.com, and in Cause & Effect Magazine, iMAGE Magazine, and H+. Links to his painting gallery, live and studio recordings, and visionary music blog can be found at myspace.com/michaelgarfield.

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There are at least three levels of motivation for making a funeral mix. As I have mentioned (in Part I and II), personal comfort - planning-as-insulation from an intensely impartial and unforgiving void - is one. But beyond the narrow constraints of such half-conscious, fear-motivated scrambling - the secular and self-serving penitences of our iPod culture - there are nobler reasons to leave a funeral playlist (or any artifact) that communicates something you are no longer able to say.

A moment of explanation. Back in 2005, I heard Ken Wilber speak in Denver, and he was discussing how we can't determine a person's motivation from their actions alone. This is because as we mature psychologically, our sense of self becomes more complex and extends to more and more of the world we experience; what used to be "it" becomes "me." We start in a swirl of undifferentiated experience and learn through laborious error that there is a difference between "self" and "other." Then we learn that we have a body, but are not exclusively that body; then we learn that we have thoughts, but are not exclusively our thoughts. All of these things are there the whole time, but as our inner world becomes richer, we learn to recognize them as distinct objects of our experience - and, simultaneously, learn that these things that are parts of us are not us, in the sense that "I" remain "I" without them. As a child grows, what she considers "me" (and therefore "mine") grows in an expanding concentric ring, and this passage - from "egocentric" to "ethnocentric" to "worldcentric," or concern for self, then family, then all people - offers an entire spectrum of reasons for her to do any particular thing.

Ken offered, as a mundane example, the use of makeup. Someone can wear lipstick because it makes her feel pretty (egocentric); or because it will please another person or other people, or it's "the right thing to do" (ethnocentric); or because by beautifying herself, she's making the whole world more beautiful and thus acting in service of a universal ideal (worldcentric). And you'll never know by watching someone make kissy faces in the mirror whether she's doing it for one of these reasons, and not another.

(If any of this is unclear, here's more about egocentrism, ethnocentrism, and worldcentrism.)

With that in mind:

If I'm going to make a list of songs to be played at my funeral, I want to do it for the noblest reasons I know. I'm not going to do it merely to sandbag my own fear of mortality, or to relish forcing my will on people in a moment of unique vulnerability. I want to make an offering of music that has helped me deal with mortality and bereavement, in the hope that I can bring some modicum of peace to a world defined by suffering. I want to share the sole remaining thing I will be able to give people after I die: perspective.

After all, losing someone is scary. Even when we can't completely fathom the death of our own bodies, we feel death directly in a small way when the people with whom we identify pass on. "I feel like I lost a piece of myself," we say, and the truth is that we did - even if our limited Western notion of compartmental identity doesn't acknowledge it as such.

The music playing at my funeral, then, is also the music playing at their funeral. And what would you want to hear when you're dying? A dispatch from the other side, alleviating the unbearable mystery? Loving acknowledgment and the permission to feel what you're feeling? A reminder of how this passage is what unifies you with everyone else? Music can offer all of these things in one form or another.

And peace is contagious - so if I have the means to offer it to even a few people, it can ripple outward through their thoughts and deeds and affect everyone else, people I never had the chance to meet. In fact, why wait until I'm dead? Why conserve the gift for a handful of friends and family?

From here on out, I'll use this column to examine the songs I would offer to anyone who survives me. This is the music that accomplishes (in my opinion) the highest potential of music: to connect us so deeply to the world that we are dead before we are dead, that we are unafraid of death (and thus, unafraid of life). Affirmative even in their difficult truths, these songs have given me a solace I haven't found anywhere else. Hopefully, they'll make you feel a little bit more capable of handling the grim reality of my death, and yours.

Previous articles in this series:

PART I: The Soundtrack To Your Funeral, I: Playing DJ To The Bereaved
PART II: The Soundtrack To Your Funeral, II: Putting Death in a Box

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Michael Garfield is intent on demonstrating that everything is equally art, science, and spiritual practice - to revive cultural and individual investment in the renaissance thinking that finds equal value in thinking and feeling, description and experience. Working as a scientific illustrator and essayist by day, and a live electronic musician and performance painter by night, Michael divides his attentions between exploring and celebrating the vast complex vibratory spectacle that is our musical universe. His work has been featured at integralnaked.org, realitysandwich.com, and paullonely.com, and in Cause & Effect Magazine, iMAGE Magazine, and H+. Links to his painting gallery, live and studio recordings, and visionary music blog can be found at myspace.com/michaelgarfield.

Discuss this article

Since I started to write about DJing one's own going away party, the bark has peeled back from the tree to reveal a world much more fascinated with this subject than I knew. My first clue came casually: "Oh, like in High Fidelity!" I saw High Fidelity, and loved it - but that was a few years ago, long enough to totally forget that Rob Gordon, Nick Hornsby's playlist-obsessed protagonist, had already popularized the funeral mixtape game. Then, I discovered that a mysterious British organization, the Bereavement Register, polled U.K. citizens about this very question, as well - to discover that 79 percent of them were already thinking about it. Apparently James Blunt is well-regarded as a deliverer of dirges; he topped the pre-funeral charts (which is funny, because Brits also voted him one of the most annoying things about their country - insert bagpipe analogy here):

01. "Goodbye My Lover" - James Blunt
02. "Angels" - Robbie Williams
03. "I've Had the Time of My Life" - Jennifer Warnes and Bill Medley
04. "Wind Beneath My Wings" - Bette Midler
05. "Pie Jesu" - Requiem
06. "Candle in the Wind" - Elton John
07. "With or Without You" - U2
08. "Tears in Heaven" - Eric Clapton
09. "Every Breath You Take" - The Police
10. "Unchained Melody" - Righteous Brothers

Wow. "Unchained Melody" is only number ten? What an outrage. Actually, I'm pretty aghast at most of these. (Speaking of aghast: Interestingly but trivially, both Hornsby and this poll came from the U.K., a decidedly morbid patch of land.)

People have been playing music for as long as they've been burying their dead, and so I'm sure that people - for as long as we have understood our mortality and could be called people - have been requesting certain songs be played at their graveside. While I can't find any recorded history of the funeral mix, I think it's safe to assume that we started requesting recorded music at our funerals as soon as it was available. Compared to the modesty of flowers and dirt that they used to be, most modern funerals are technological spectacles. We take every opportunity to upgrade even our most ancient ceremonies. We are accomplices to a universal current of crystallizing self-reflexion, embracing every novelty, jumping on every chance to compensate for Death by replicating and disseminating our favorite ideas.

We make a religion of anything that will outlive us. Since there are no carry-ons or checked luggage allowed on that particular flight (the weight limit is zero), we have to cash in at the gates of eternity by ceding eternal life to the living. We hand down the right to endure to someone or something else - our children and our stories, an ideal, or a joke, or a song. We finally find immortality by investing our living and dying breaths in the worship of those things we consider to be beautiful, or good, or true.

To put it another way, we know we end, and so we are obsessed with legacy. And whenever something increases our capacity to leave our legacy - when we invent writing, or the printing press, or genetic engineering, or the internet - we feed it as much as it can eat. Even ourselves.

And so we began investing in fossils, identifying with particular recordings, and not the living music to which they referred - the abstract and elusive, nimble and ephemeral music that characterized being human before the Age of Recording, never the same twice, mischievous and seductive. In a way, we have paved the way for Death by even agreeing to recorded music, by unemploying the spontaneous expression of grief we find only in the music of the bereaved. Postmodern composer John Cage:

"A finished work is exactly that, requires resurrection."

If playing recorded music at a funeral does in fact squelch some balance of living response, then we end up not just dead but having managed to pull the funeral down with us, as well. What, then, is the point of coming up with a funeral mix? I think so many people delight at the prospect because making playlists is the fashionable modern way for us to to contain the tremendous, terrifying mystery of the unknown.

A UCLA study led by Matthew Lieberman recently concluded that identifying emotions allows people a degree of immunity from them. By even recognizing and naming our anger, sadness, or fear, we move ourselves to a safe and impassive distance. (Of course, the same is true for pleasurable emotions, as should be obvious to anyone who has ever watched a joke die by dissection.) Not only did they finally find a physiological basis for the benefits of mindfulness meditation - evidence that learning to watch the mind does actually lift people over the thunder and lightning of the limbic system - but they also unwittingly explained why it's so useful for us to write or sing or paint out our troubling experiences.

The emerging model is one of subject-object relations, where describing grief allows us to loosen our identification with it. By speaking about "the" grief, or even "my" grief, we move our pain into the third person - where we have it, rather than it having us. By codifying our lives and deaths, we remove ourselves from them, and no longer suffer total immersion in an unconquerable wash of feeling.

We benefit from funeral playlists because they pin down the most salient metaphors so we can study them, because "a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush." Like good naturalists, we capture our experiences and embalm them behind a glass case, the boundless fury of Nature Red In Tooth And Claw miniaturized and mediated by a guided audio-tour. Our playlists reflect the edges of a giant, hidden shape. They allow us to tame Death by conceiving of it, by relating to it in a way our minds can manage (although, looking through the cage bars into this tiger exhibit, we forget that the tiger is actually still loose in the zoo).

It is precisely because having a funeral playlist somehow kills the living expression of grief - because recorded music offers, in its death, the illusion of persistence and of fathomability - that it is so popular. And the luxury of capturing our whole holographic experience in a single posthumous album is that we can close the books on a truth more grand and intricate than any of us can bear.

But that may also be why, as consoling as they may be, funeral mixes offer no ultimate solace - because keeping Death at arm's length doesn't allow the intimacy of direct experience. Sooner or later, each of us will have to move into Death, instead of away from it, and practicing one won't ready us for the other.

On the other hand, all technology seems capable of supporting both our desperate illusions of security and enabling our unflinching self-transcendence. Could a funeral playlist prepare people for Death, rather than merely offering us distractions and false promises? I certainly think so. In the next installment, I'll discuss the funeral playlist as not just a coping mechanism, but a tool for skillful compassion, and I'll continue to explore the songs on the soundtrack to my funeral.

In the meantime, here's an hors d'ouevre, Stuart Davis' spectacularly irreverent and lucid song, "Practice Dying." If any song can capture the subtlest essence of why to make a funeral playlist, this is it:

Stuart Davis - "Practice Dying"

Get high on ether when there's no one in the house
Pretend it's the big one at the moment you pass out
That's just rehearsal, but it's comforting somehow
To practice dying now

Hang out in funeral homes and make an honest bid
Lay in your casket, let them close the lid
Abra cadaver, roll your eyes back in your head
Practice being dead

Don't feel stupid; we're all scared
No one wants to go to hell
There's still time to get prepared
Start out now and finish well

Try painting tunnels on the ceiling in your room
Imagine your birth backwards with a bigger, better womb
Take little trips out of your body now and then
And if the rapture comes, maybe you'll ascend
You know the saying, "Once you learn to ride a bike..."
Well, that's what dying's like

Get high on ether when there's no one in the house
Pretend it's the big one at the moment you pass out
It's just rehearsal, 'cause that's all that life allows
So practice dying
Cuz you're almost dead
Practice dying now

Previous articles in this series:
PART I: The Soundtrack To Your Funeral, I: Playing DJ To The Bereaved

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Michael Garfield is intent on demonstrating that everything is equally art, science, and spiritual practice - to revive cultural and individual investment in the renaissance thinking that finds equal value in thinking and feeling, description and experience. Working as a scientific illustrator and essayist by day, and a live electronic musician and performance painter by night, Michael divides his attentions between exploring and celebrating the vast complex vibratory spectacle that is our musical universe. His work has been featured at integralnaked.org, realitysandwich.com, and paullonely.com, and in Cause & Effect Magazine, iMAGE Magazine, and H+. Links to his painting gallery, live and studio recordings, and visionary music blog can be found at myspace.com/michaelgarfield.

Discuss this article