Paul Fitzpatrick: February 2025

I lost my mum a few weeks ago.

It’s tough to lose someone you love, especially when they’ve been there since you first opened your eyes, but I console myself with the fact that she had a happy life, lived to 95 and passed peacefully.
Something I suspect most of us would settle for.

I learned that you don’t get a lot of time to make decisions when someone passes unexpectedly. In fact the only thing we’d considered in advance was that we’d hold a humanist ceremony, principally so we could give her the send-off we wanted.

I also learned that some aspects of organising a funeral are harder than others, take music for example.
My mum always loved her music so I thought choosing a few songs for the ceremony would be a breeze, and it was, until I was faced with selecting the exit music.

Some years ago I attended a friend’s funeral where ‘Always Look on the Bright Side of Life’ echoed from the church speakers as we made our exit, which I understood as Pavlo always wanted to make people laugh, but in that moment as I looked at his first born who was barely a year old, I wasn’t particularly ready to look on the bright side of life.
On the other side of the coin, I’ve also been to ceremonies where they’ve played the most heart-wrenching exit music, like Nilsson’s ‘Without You’, or Bill Withers ‘Ain’t No Sunshine’, leaving people in bits.

I wanted to choose a piece of music that was meaningful but not too downbeat, my logic being that everyone’s a little traumatised after the curtains are drawn and the casket disappears, so I didn’t want to compound people’s sadness as they were shuffling out of the crematorium.

I have 11,134 songs in my itunes library so selecting a piece of music would be relatively easy I thought, but It turned out to be a tougher task than I imagined.

My initial choice was a favourite of mum’s that reminds me of her every time I hear it.

In 1974 when I was sixteen, I went to Blackpool with my pals for the September weekend and first heard Barry White, in a Northern Soul club, on a fantastic sound system. The orchestration and rhythm section blew me away, and as soon as I got home I bought the album ‘Can’t Get Enough’.
It became my ‘getting ready to go out’ album and whenever I played ‘You’re the First my Last my Everything’ my mum would dance round the house as if she was the sixth member of Pans People.
Even in her nineties it would get her toes tapping.

So, Barry White was my inspired exit-music choice until my wife gently reminded me it was a funeral not a disco and the walrus of love erotically moaning “You and me baby” was probably not occasion-appropriate.
She was right of course, (she usually is), still, the acoustics would have been spectacular.

I struggled a bit after that that.
Selecting a song with meaningful lyrics and a bit of rhythm was more challenging than I realised until I remembered Paul Simon’s ‘Loves Me Like a Rock’.

God bless him, as time goes by and I become more reflective, I’ve learned to love (and listen to) Paul Simon more and more and I knew he wouldn’t let me down.

‘Loves Me Like a Rock’ is as close to a gospel song as you’re going to get from a Jewish kid from New Jersey so tonally it felt right and when I re-acquainted myself with the lyrics, I knew it was exactly what was needed.

Of course, once you’ve gone through this, you realise that all the stuff that seems important like caskets, flowers, cars, order of service, songs and what type of sandwiches to serve aren’t very important at all, it’s all about family, friends and a million memories.

Take it away Mr Simon……

When I was a little boy (When I was just a boy)
And the devil would call my name (When I was just a boy)
I’d say, now who do (Who)
Who do you think you’re foolin’ (When I was just a boy)
I’m a consecrated boy (When I was just a boy)
I’m a singer in a Sunday choir
Oh, my mama loves me, she loves me
She get down on her knees and hug me
Like she loves me like a rock