Funeral for a Friend

Here's an old thing I made while cleaning out my hard drive, so I thought I'd share it with the world.

A few years back, one of my dearest friends was nearing her 30th birthday.  She had read the statistic that, if a woman is unmarried by the age of 30, she may as well be dead, because that's how sharply her marriage prospects drop off.  With that in mind, for her 30th birthday party, she decided to throw herself a funeral.  She asked all her friends to submit eulogies, and her boyfriend was going to read them.  (And if you're worried about her marital status, her boyfriend put a ring on it a few months later.)

I was sad that I couldn't be there, because, at the time, she was in the magical, faraway land of Scotland, and I was a broke young man at his very first radio gig in the equally magical, but not as faraway, land of Athabasca.  As I sat down one afternoon to write it, it occurred to me:  I work in radio.  I have the set-up to record stuff.  Why don't I record myself saying it, and send her boyfriend the MP3?

And, as a firm believer in the power of production, I decided to raid my collection of film scores and put in some appropriate music.

I didn't get her reaction until a year later.  She was back in the country when my 30th birthday rolled around, and decided to pop in for the party.  According to her, my eulogy was definitely the highlight.  It was getting a little monotonous, as most of her friends just jotted down a sentence or two that boiled down to, "She's my friend and now she's dead and I'm sad."  Then her boyfriend stood up and said, "And we've got one last one here, that comes to us all the way from Canada," and he hit play, and the room was enraptured.  She even says that one of her friends instantly fell in love with me, and is waiting to greet me with a kiss should I ever find myself in Edinburgh.  (In my dreams, it's Karen Gillan.)

Anyway, I found it gathering dust on my hard drive, so I thought I'd dust it off and post it online.



For those curious, the music:

• "Leaving Home" from Superman, composed by John Williams
• "To the Stars" from Dragonheart, composed by Randy Edelman
• "Jupiter, the Bringer of Jolity," from The Planets, composed by Gustav Holst
• "Augustus Gloop" from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, composed by Danny Elfman
• "Happy Birthday," written and performed by "Weird Al" Yankovic
• "Remains of the Day" from Tim Burton's Corpse Bride, composed by Danny Elfman