That Eric Alper

Death comes for us all, but that doesn’t mean you can’t get the last laugh.Here are 20 of the best options together for your consideration. Some are darkly poetic. Some are logistically inspired. Some are just weapons. All of them will ensure that nobody leaves your funeral feeling the way they expected to.

“Never Gonna Give You Up” by Rick Astley, a lot of times

The undisputed champion of this entire list and one of the greatest long-form funeral pranks ever conceived. You play it 20 consecutive times, but you insert a single play of “Never Gonna Give You Up” after the seventh repetition, just to give people a brief, beautiful flicker of hope before the thoughts of memes come rushing back. It requires a level of advance planning that honestly shows more commitment than most people demonstrate while alive.

“Man in the Box” by Alice in Chains

Technically accurate. Uncommonly on the nose. The mourners’ll either burst out laughing or stare at each other in horrified silence, and either outcome is a victory.

“Knock on Wood” Played from Inside the Coffin

Not strictly a song choice but an execution strategy so inspired it deserves its own entry. The logistics of arranging this in advance are genuinely complex, which makes it the Mount Everest of posthumous pranking. Commit to the bit.

“Highway to Hell” by AC/DC

Imagine being a funeral director who’s heard every possible song choice and thinks they’ve seen it all, and then this comes on over the speakers. The beauty of this one is that it works equally well whether you were a devoted churchgoer or a committed heathen. Both readings are hilarious for entirely different reasons.

“Baby Shark”

There’s something uniquely diabolical about subjecting grieving adults to the most relentlessly cheerful earworm ever inflicted on the human race. They’ll be humming it in the car on the way home. They’ll wake up with it three days later. You’ll be gone. You win completely.

“Astronomia” by Tony Igy

Also known as the Coffin Dance song. Every single person at your funeral’s seen the meme at least forty times. Playing this at your own actual funeral while you’re actually in a coffin is the kind of meta-joke that belongs in a comedy hall of fame. The pallbearers won’t know whether to laugh or walk faster.

“Everything Is Awesome” from The Lego Movie

Aggressively optimistic. Tonally catastrophic. The key is that it’s not ironic enough to give anyone an escape hatch. There’s no reading of this song that makes it appropriate for a funeral, which means everyone just has to sit there and absorb it for three full minutes while nodding politely.

“Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go” by Wham!

The request embedded in the title takes on an entirely new dimension in this context and the song is so relentlessly cheerful that the dissonance becomes almost philosophical. You also get to go out to George Michael, which is never a bad decision.

“Celebration” by Kool and the Gang

Celebrate good times, come on. Is this not exactly what funerals are supposed to be, at least in theory? The genius of this choice is that you could play it completely straight and the argument that you meant it sincerely would make everyone even more uncomfortable than if you’d meant it as a joke.

“Don’t Care Anymore” by Phil Collins

Three words that summarise the entire vibe of being dead. Phil Collins didn’t write this as a farewell message but it functions as one with devastating efficiency. Short, blunt, and impossible to misread.

“They’re Coming to Take Me Away” by Napoleon XIV

A 1966 novelty song about being carted off to a psychiatric facility, delivered in an increasingly manic voice over a marching beat. Playing this at your funeral raises questions about your final mental state that your loved ones’ll spend years unpacking in therapy.

“War Pigs” by Black Sabbath

I’ve been mentally planning this one since roughly third grade and I’m not embarrassed about it. At eight minutes of slow-building doom metal it’s also a significant time commitment for the mourners, which feels right. They’ll sit through it. They’ll think about what they’ve done.

“The Roof Is on Fire” by Bloodhound Gang

If you’re going for cremation, the thematic consistency here is simply too good to pass up. It’s not just a funeral song. It’s a program note.

“It’s Getting Hot in Here” by Nelly

Again, cremation-specific programming deserves its own sub-genre and this is the founding text. You could run an entire cremation-themed playlist and it’d be genuinely impressive. Something to consider.

“Living in a Box” by Living in a Box

A band called Living in a Box playing a song called “Living in a Box” at your funeral while you’re literally in a box. This is the kind of layered absurdist poetry that most artists spend their entire careers trying to achieve and most of them never get there.

“Hokey Cokey”

The staging possibilities alone make this essential. The pallbearers put the casket in, take the casket out, put it in again, shake it all about. If you can choreograph this with willing participants it’s the single greatest physical comedy achievement in the history of funerals.

“The Final Countdown” by Europe

The drama. The synthesisers. The mounting sense of impending something. It works almost too well as a funeral song, which is exactly why it belongs here. Nobody’ll be able to keep a straight face and everyone’ll pretend they’re managing.

“Free Bird” by Lynyrd Skynyrd

At nine minutes long and culturally understood as the universal symbol of someone who refuses to leave, playing this as your curtain call has a beautiful circular logic to it. You’re the one not leaving this time. The shoe is on the other foot. The bird is free.

“Bohemian Rhapsody” by Queen

Print the lyrics in the order of service. Make it participatory. Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy? At a funeral, genuinely unclear, and the fact that nobody’ll know whether to sing along’ll create an atmosphere of exquisite social tension that money simply can’t buy.

“Hamster Dance”

No explanation required. No justification possible. An act of pure sonic warfare against everyone who ever loved you, delivered from beyond the grave with a smile. Go out swinging.