In praise of living eulogies
Instead of only celebrating people when they’re in a box, let’s regularly tell them we love them, says Guy Noble.
The New York Times columnist David Brooks wrote that there were two sets of virtues in life, the resume virtues and the eulogy virtues. The resume virtues are the skills you bring to the marketplace. The eulogy virtues are the ones that are talked about at your funeral – whether you were kind, brave, honest or faithful, whether you loved deeply.
This came to mind recently as I went to yet another funeral of someone who died way short of their biblical span. At the age of 49, opera singer Taryn Fiebig was in the extremely unlucky...
Guy Noble’s praise of living eulogies in May Limelight focuses attention on contemporary funeral customs and the contribution made by the arts in expressing our deeper feelings.
Funeral customs have changed over the years, with a more light-hearted approach gaining sway. The funeral is often described as a celebration of life and held at a football oval, beach or park. The music is variable and likely to feature Sinatra’s My Way or, more appropriately, Over the Rainbow. As selected by a deceased conservative male friend, I heard his favourite song I’m a Pistol Packin’ Moma played at the end of a funeral conducted by a cleric.
Funeral notices follow the same carefree pattern with expressions such as “rest in peace but keep partying” or “gone fishing”. One contained the ambiguous comment “peace at last”!
Death and love have inspired many poets and composers. From Schumann’s song cycle A Woman’s Life and Love to Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor and Puccini’s Madam Butterfly, unhappy love ends in grief and death, with Mahler’s Songs on the Death of Children providing a poignant statement of the composer’s own experience.
Politics could also be enriched by music. Government failure to provide adequate relief funding for an arts community hard hit by COVID-19 restrictions would be corrected if politicians understood how classical music can highlight their careers. After an election win, the PM’s entry to the victory party could be accompanied by The Entry of the Nobles from Tannhauser, and the loser’s mood could be matched by the Miserere from Verdi’s Requiem. Politicians wriggling to evade giving effect to campaign promises could be serenaded by One Fine Day, as a fair assessment of the outcome, while an MP leaving politics in disgrace could depart to the sounds of Berlioz’ March to the Scaffold from his Symphony Fantastique. The remainder of the caucus could celebrate political survival with The Best of All Possible Worlds from Candide.
These examples all indicate that music can be better than words in conveying our deeper meanings, and as Guy Noble says, our choices can be very revealing.