Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
[00:00:13] Speaker B: Welcome to the Nathan's and Roncast. I'm Aaron Nathans. This week I traveled to Scarsdale, New York for the funeral of my brother in law David.
Among many other admirable traits, David loved podcasts and when I was building my podcasts for Princeton University, I had to envision whom their typical listener might be. Of course David came to mind, somebody intelligent and curious about a wide variety of things. I ran a lot of podcast ideas by him and we talked out various paths I could take. David was a great listening board about a lot of things. I will miss him so much. This week we also lost Christine Havrella, a wonderful songwriter and fierce musical performer with whom I had the honor to share a stage on multiple occasions. One of my favorite memories was just how upbeat she stayed at a show with Michael and me when there were just two people in the audience.
And last year she played at my series Philly Songwriters in the Round and I saw how upbeat she stayed in the face of cancer. So it's no surprise that I've got Memorial Songs on the Brain it's always tricky to find the right song to play at a memorial service.
Maybe you want to pick something that tells you a little bit about the deceased. Or perhaps you want the song to make a comment about how we're all feeling at this low moment. Lean on Me by Bill Withers comes to mind. I also remember my buddy Avi Wisnia played the Rainbow Connection at his own father's funeral last year because it was a song that they loved and spoke to their relationship.
There are really two ways a memorial song can go. The first way is to deal with the topic directly, and there are a lot of songs that do that, no matter how topically appropriate they are. These songs can be a little much in a memorial setting, and many of these songs are a little much in any setting. I'm talking about Celine Dion's My Heart Will Go On, Eric Clapton's heartbreaking Tears in Heaven, Tim McGraw's Live like youe Were Dying, and Heaven Was Needing a Hero by Joe Dimasina. But if done right, a song like this can really work.
My favorite of this bunch is Vince Gill's Go Rest High on that Mountain, which exudes strength and compassion. It sounds a little like a prayer. I dig it. Then there are the songs that really aren't memorial songs. They either come at the issue from the side glancingly or were not designed to be memorial songs in the first place. Think of what a Wonderful World by George David Weiss and Bob Thiel which was popularized by Louis Armstrong or Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah. They're very different songs, but both really work in this setting because they deal with the meaning of life rather than the losing of life. I also like My City of Ruins by Bruce Springsteen for this reason, the destruction of Asbury park is a metaphor for loss of something we love. When he sings Rise up, come on, Rise up, it reminds us that good things will happen again, Just like that City by the Sea came back to life in a new way. I really like Asbury park, by the way. At David's service, I played an original song that I wrote about him while he was in the hospital a few months ago. I'm hoping to share it with you at some point. It was about his generosity and what a great listener he was, and about how he struggled, too. I'm glad I got to play it for him a few months ago. Songwriters have an advantage here. If no song truly speaks to the moment, we can always write one like I did. These songs serve a purpose. I've realized over the last few months, through so many funereal moments, that music has the power to cut through our pain and reach a part of us that words alone cannot, especially when we sing together. That sound feels like strength, and I think that's what you want from a song like this. Something to make everyone feel a little better or maybe provide a little bit of catharsis. Thanks for listening. Talk with you soon. Peace.
