Awê Ma Se Kinnes
Music is everything. Have you already told your family what song you’d like for them to play at your funeral? You mussss, it’s important. That’s of course if you want any music during your funeral service. But you should have at least one song, don’t be boring. Or as they say in the classics, don’t be droeg.
But before we even get to your possible funeral playlist, let’s just acknowledge that life would be oh so odd if we existed in a world void of songs. The older you get, the more you realize how the different chapters of our lives are connected to music.
I still go onto YouTube (generally when I’m meant to be working), and I check out the songs from old TV shows, and then I get all nostalgic and stuff and I smile because that’s what music can evoke. You remember being safe and happy when you heard the opening bars to Wielie Walie or Heidi or Pinocchio. I still know all the lyrics to the Pinocchio song. “Houtkabouter, Jy’s ‘n Stouter, Jy laat jou tog so maklik vang, en raak dan altyd vreeslik bang, jou klein kalant.” Don’t get me started. Ah man, the joys of totally believing that a wooden boy’s nose would grow longer whenever he lied. Life was beautiful.
But songs can break your heart as well, I can hear a particular song and immediately know where I was, and with whom. Especially those break-up nommers, James Ingram Oh my nerves. How hectic was that one album. There’s no easy way to break somebody’s heart, how can people write songs like that! And no matter how you try to be kind, there’s always still a part of you you leave behind, ’cause when it falls apart, there’s no easy way to break somebody’s heart. The married people reading this will know how awkward the mood can get in the lounge when a song suddenly plays and you both know that this has something to do with your ex, jirre Bronwyn. At that point you soema nervously offer your husband tea.
(Listen to that James Ingram track tonight and listen to the way he sings the very last line – my nipples can’t handle it!)
As much as the break-up songs can tear us apart whenever we hear them, the make-up songs are often the ones that make couples shout OMG THIS IS OUR SONG! Some couples even choose that song as their special song to open the dancefloor at the wedding. It’s often a song that hints at what they’ve been through on their journey to get to that special day. So don’t select Radiohead’s CREEP.
To this day still, the dancefloor at the wedding gets busy all over the world when the experienced DJ whips out the sure winners like DANCING QUEEN and I WILL SURVIVE. Timeless stuff that makes you believe that you are the best dancer this side of the equator. After that second shooter, naturally.
Because music has pretty much been with you all your life, it is then only fair that you leave the planet accompanied by your song of choice. My people already know that I’m forever a Whitney fan so they will be spoilt for choice. Okay, maybe I should narrow the list down for them, I mean I WANNA DANCE WITH SOMEBODY would just be wrong. I have zero intention of coming to visit anyone, lussie om te spoekie.
So choose your exit number. Otherwise your family will choose for you, and they are capable of making very silly choices. Someone told me he was at a funeral where, as the coffin was being carried out of the church, they played YOU RAISE ME UP.
No. Just no.