Dear loves,
The movie The Big Chill opens with the song You Can’t Always Get What You Want by the Rolling Stones, which overlays scenes of a funeral.
This has long been my funeral song (and one of my favorite movies).
The chorus of the song goes like this.
You can’t always get what you want
You can’t always get what you want
You can’t always get what you want
But if you try sometimes, well, you might find
You get what you need
This song is with me all of the time, tying together life’s synchronicities.
For example, one weekend this March, around my (now-deceased-for-many-years) step-father’s birthday, a photo of him kept showing up in a widget on my home screen. He loved cars. German cars. Fast cars. Used cars he bought at auction and took to a local shop, full of optimism that the mechanics could keep them running longer than they really should. He was A Car Guy.
My son was gifted his grandmother’s Mustang after he turned 16. A 2009, convertible, white. For four months he relished in the sounds the “ponies” made when he pulled out of the driveway. He took great care of it and great pride in it.
The Mustang has a habit of fishtailing, especially on wet roads, and that weekend, when we got a few snowflakes and raindrops, it fishtailed and sent him and his best friend across two lanes and into a guardrail.
The car was totaled. The boys were fine.
That same afternoon I watched the trailer for season 3 of Ted Lasso. It was a series of soundless video clips and just one song: You Can’t Always Get What You Want.
I think our funeral songs are often indicators of how we view life. And this particular weekend, with my stepfather looking over us, it rang true for my son, his best friend, and me. We didn’t get what we wanted, but we go what we needed.
Do you have a song you have asked people to listen to at your funeral?
with great love and respect for your life,
kristin