46 Funeral Songs for Mom: Hymns, Gospel, Modern & More
Maya Bennett · Senior Lyricist — Family & Milestone Songs
Updated August 21, 2026 · 28 min read
The funeral songs for mom that families choose most often are 'Supermarket Flowers' by Ed Sheeran, 'Wind Beneath My Wings' by Bette Midler and 'Amazing Grace' for a church service. If her church sang gospel, it is 'Take My Hand, Precious Lord' or 'His Eye Is on the Sparrow'. And if she had a favorite song of her own, play it, whatever it is; a favorite outranks an appropriate song every time, and always has.
This page holds 46 of them, grouped the way families actually search for them: classics and hymns, gospel songs for a mother's homegoing, modern songs, non-religious choices, uplifting songs for a celebration of her life, and the picks that fit best coming from a daughter or from a son. Every note says which slot in the day the song belongs in, what it quietly assumes about the room, and what to reach for instead when it is the wrong fit. You can skim the whole thing in ten minutes rather than listening for two hours. Some of these will be wrong for her. Crossing those off is progress too.
We write the songs families ask for when the borrowed ones run out, and mothers are the request that comes in most. After enough of them, the pattern in what people send us is hard to miss: for a mother, the memories almost always arrive as her hands doing something, the particular noise of her kitchen, and one sentence she said at the door every time you left — three images that carry more of a woman in a lyric than any adjective about how kind she was. Keep that filter running while you skim. The song people still talk about a year later is rarely the grandest one in the program; it is the one that sounded like her, and with that test 46 becomes three fairly quickly. If the images turn out to be hers alone, a song written about her and no one else is what the end of this page is for.
Classic funeral songs and hymns for mom
1.Amazing Grace — Traditional (words by John Newton) (1779)
'Amazing Grace' is the hymn to save for the graveside or for the last minutes of a mother's service, because it is the one piece a mixed room of relatives can sing without being handed a book. John Newton, an English slave-ship captain who later took orders in the Church of England, wrote the words for his parish at Olney and published them in 1779; the tune Americans sing it to, 'New Britain', was not paired with the text until a shape-note collection printed the two together in 1835, which is why the hymn feels older than its own melody. For a mother whose faith was the frame of her life, one unaccompanied voice starting it and the family coming in late does more than any arrangement. Do not spend it as background under a slideshow, which wastes the singing — 'In the Garden' sits behind photographs without asking anything of anyone.
2.Ave Maria — Franz Schubert (1825)
'Ave Maria' by Franz Schubert is the piece requested most often for a Catholic mother, and its slot in the Mass is fixed: during communion, or as the casket is carried back down the aisle. Schubert composed it in 1825 as 'Ellen's Third Song', a setting of a German translation of Walter Scott's poem 'The Lady of the Lake' — the Latin prayer everyone now associates with it was fitted to the melody later, by other hands. That history explains the manners of the piece. It asks nothing of the pews except stillness, and a cantor can carry it with an organ and nothing else behind her. If there is a trained singer in the family, this is the one to give her. It is the wrong choice for a mother who wanted her people singing rather than listening; 'How Great Thou Art' turns an audience back into a congregation.
3.How Great Thou Art — Traditional (words by Carl Boberg, English by Stuart K. Hine)
A mainstay of Protestant services for generations, and often the hymn a mother sang loudest herself. Elvis Presley and Carrie Underwood both recorded versions sturdy enough to play from a speaker if nobody feels able to lead it live.
4.In the Garden — C. Austin Miles (1912)
A quiet hymn about walking and talking with God in the early morning, beloved by the generation of women who kept a hymnal in the house. It is gentle, short, and familiar to older guests. An easy fit early in a service, while people settle.
5.It Is Well with My Soul — Horatio Spafford & Philip Bliss (1876)
Spafford wrote the words after losing his four daughters in a shipwreck, which is why the calm of this hymn feels earned rather than polite. Families choose it when the loss is heavy and they still intend to stand up straight. A congregation that knows it will sing it hard.
6.On Eagle's Wings — Michael Joncas (1979)
Drawn from Psalm 91 and sung at Catholic funerals across the country for four decades. The refrain is the comfort: being held up when you cannot hold yourself. Most parish musicians know it cold, so it is a safe request on short notice.
7.The Old Rugged Cross — George Bennard (1913)
An old gospel standard that suits a plainspoken, country-raised mother. It works best unadorned, one guitar or one voice. Alan Jackson's recording is a good choice if the service needs a recorded version.
Gospel songs for a mother's homegoing
8.Take My Hand, Precious Lord — Thomas A. Dorsey (1932)
'Take My Hand, Precious Lord' by Thomas A. Dorsey belongs in the middle of a mother's homegoing, at the point where the family has to be carried from grief over into worship, and it wants one strong voice rather than a congregation. Dorsey was away from home in August 1932 when word reached him that his wife, Nettie Harper, had died in childbirth; their infant son died two days afterward. He set the words he wrote to a melody adapted from George N. Allen's tune 'Maitland', and Mahalia Jackson's reading remains the one every other singer is measured against. For a woman who spent her life being the hand somebody smaller was holding, hearing her ask for that hand back is the part that takes a room apart. Skip it when the service is short and formal — 'On Eagle's Wings' fills the same minutes without asking anyone to carry a solo.
9.His Eye Is on the Sparrow — Civilla D. Martin & Charles H. Gabriel (1905)
'His Eye Is on the Sparrow' is the piece to hand a soloist late in a mother's service, when the family needs the assurance said out loud rather than sung at them. Civilla D. Martin wrote the words in 1905 and Charles H. Gabriel the music, and the song's second life belongs to Ethel Waters, who performed it so often that she borrowed the title for her autobiography; Mahalia Jackson recorded it, and Whitney Houston sang it to a new generation decades later. Its argument is deliberately small — if the least valuable bird is accounted for, so is she — which suits a mother whose faith was practical rather than grand, the kind kept in a purse next to the grocery list. Reach elsewhere if the room came to sing together rather than listen: 'How Great Thou Art' gives every voice in the building something to do.
10.Goin' Up Yonder — Walter Hawkins (1975)
'Goin' Up Yonder' by Walter Hawkins is the recessional at a homegoing, the piece that walks a family out of the building on their feet instead of leaving them folded into a pew. Hawkins released it in 1975 on the album Love Alive, and the thing to understand before you put it in the program is that the choir carries this one, not the soloist: the lead sets it up and the voices behind her decide how far it travels. That makes it a poor fit for a small chapel with a recording playing through a ceiling speaker, and close to unbeatable in a church with a loft full of people who sang beside her for forty years. Do not schedule anything after it. Where the family wants to leave quietly and go straight to the cars, 'In the Garden' lets them do exactly that.
11.I Won't Complain — Rev. Paul Jones
'I Won't Complain' by Rev. Paul Jones (1960-1990) is for the mother who held a family together through years nobody outside the house ever heard about, and it belongs in the stretch where the eulogy would otherwise sit. Jones recorded it live during a church service in Houston, and the recording keeps the room inside it: the answering back, the organ waiting on him, the pauses a studio would have trimmed. That is a large part of why it became a traditional gospel classic and drew a Stellar Award nomination. The song never pretends the years were easy; it counts them and then declines to file a complaint, and that distinction is the entire tribute for a woman who worked and did not discuss it. It runs long on purpose. On a tight schedule with a graveside still to reach, 'Soon and Very Soon' says a neighboring thing in half the time.
12.Soon and Very Soon — Andraé Crouch (1976)
'Soon and Very Soon' by Andraé Crouch is walking-out music rather than sitting-still music, and it goes at the very end of a mother's service, once the family has decided the day will not close in grief. Crouch first released it with Andraé Crouch and The Disciples in 1976; he also wrote 'My Tribute' and 'Through It All' before his death in 2015, and this is the one his own tradition sings back at him. The tempo is the whole argument. A congregation claps it, the pallbearers step to it, and the room ends up moving in the same direction as the casket instead of watching it go. That only works if people are willing to stand. For a gathering of quiet, elderly guests who will stay seated whatever the choir does, 'It Is Well with My Soul' carries them out with more dignity than a song nobody joins.
13.I Can Only Imagine — MercyMe (1999)
'I Can Only Imagine' by MercyMe is the contemporary-Christian option, and the honest use for it is a family whose faith is real but whose church has a praise band rather than a choir; it fills the slideshow slot in a service where a gospel standard would land as somebody else's tradition. Bart Millard wrote it about his father's death and the question of what the first moment of arrival might actually look like. It appeared on a MercyMe album in 1999 and reached the wider radio audience as a single in 2001, by which point it had become the default at Christian funerals across the United States. Sung for a mother, it works as her children picturing her walking in somewhere and recognizing everything at once. It assumes the belief, though, and anyone who does not hold it will feel talked past — 'Fields of Gold' asks nothing of anybody.
Modern funeral songs for mom
14.Supermarket Flowers — Ed Sheeran (2017)
'Supermarket Flowers' by Ed Sheeran is the most-requested modern song for a mother's funeral, and it works best early, before anybody speaks, because it does the crying for the room so the eulogy afterward is left to do something else entirely. Sheeran put it on the album ÷ in 2017 and it came out of his grandmother Nancy's last days; he sang it at her funeral before it was ever released, and he wrote the words from his mother's point of view instead of his own. What it actually describes is the packing up of a hospital room — the cards, the vase, the going home with somebody's things in a bag. Families reach for it because that is the afternoon they have just lived through. It is too raw and too recent for a mother who died deep into a long, gentle old age; 'In My Life' looks back across a whole life rather than one week of it.
15.Visiting Hours — Ed Sheeran (2021)
Written after the sudden death of his friend and mentor Michael Gudinski, around the wish that heaven allowed visits. It is conversational rather than grand, a list of things he would still want to ask. Gentle enough for a slideshow, and good company in the year after.
16.Angel — Sarah McLachlan (1997)
'Angel' by Sarah McLachlan is the song for a death that arrived at the end of a long illness, and it belongs in the quiet stretch after the eulogy, when a room needs somewhere to put months of exhaustion. McLachlan wrote it for the album Surfacing in 1997 after the overdose death of Jonathan Melvoin, the touring keyboardist for Smashing Pumpkins, and what she wrote about was not the dying but the wish for relief underneath it. That is exactly why the family of a mother who suffered at the end hears its own year in it. It is among the most-played funeral songs in the United States, and the piano does most of the work, so it survives a bad sound system and a small chapel alike. For a sudden loss it misfires, because its idea of release has nothing to attach to — 'Because You Loved Me' serves that room far better.
17.One Sweet Day — Mariah Carey & Boyz II Men (1995)
'One Sweet Day' by Mariah Carey and Boyz II Men is the promise song, the pick for a family that wants the service to end on seeing her again rather than on a hymn about it. Released in 1995, it entered the Billboard Hot 100 at number one and held the top spot for sixteen weeks, from December 2 that year to March 16, 1996 — a record no other song beat for more than two decades. Carey wrote her half out of losses close to her, and the group turned out to be carrying an unfinished song of their own on the same subject, which is why the two halves meet without a seam. Five voices in harmony is a great deal of sound for a small chapel, so check the room first. Where the family is unsure what it believes, 'In My Life' says goodbye without promising anything.
18.Dancing in the Sky — Dani and Lizzy (2013)
'Dancing in the Sky' by Dani and Lizzy is the slideshow song for a family still in the first raw week, and it is honest about what it is doing: it speaks to her directly and asks how she is now. The Canadian twin sisters released it themselves in 2013 after the death of someone close to them, with no label behind it, and it spread by word of mouth into one of the most requested memorial songs anywhere — a rare case of a funeral standard chosen by grieving families rather than handed to them. The questions in it are the plain ones people are already thinking: is the pain gone, is there music, can you see us down here. Expect the room to come apart. That is the job it was given. For a celebration of life meant to stay light, 'Thank You for Being a Friend' keeps everybody smiling instead.
19.You Raise Me Up — Josh Groban (2003)
Groban's version turned a Secret Garden melody into a funeral standard. It is a thank-you to the person who did the lifting, which is why children of every age reach for it at a mother's service. Big without being showy.
20.Because You Loved Me — Celine Dion (1996)
Diane Warren wrote it as a thank-you to her own father, and Dion's recording became the standard way to thank a parent for everything unpaid and unseen. Daughters choose it for mothers constantly. It reads as gratitude first and grief second, which some services need.
21.Angels — Robbie Williams (1997)
A fixture near the top of British surveys of funeral music, and it earns the spot: a song about being watched over and loved regardless. Familiar enough that nobody has to explain it. Strong at the end of a service, when people need somewhere to put the feeling.
22.I Will Always Love You — Whitney Houston (1992)
'I Will Always Love You' by Whitney Houston works at a mother's service on the strength of the title alone, which is the only line half the room will register through tears. Dolly Parton wrote it in 1973 as a goodbye to Porter Wagoner when she left his television show — a parting that wishes the other person well rather than begging them to stay — and Houston's recording for The Bodyguard held number one on the Billboard Hot 100 for fourteen weeks across 1992 and 1993. That fame cuts both ways at a funeral: everyone knows it, and everyone knows the big note is coming, which can pull a room out of the moment. In a small chapel, use the opening verse sung quietly and stop there. For a family that would rather nobody performed anything at all, 'Fields of Gold' fills the same three minutes without a single bar that asks for applause.
Non-religious funeral songs for mom
23.Somewhere Over the Rainbow / What a Wonderful World — Israel Kamakawiwo'ole (1993)
The Kamakawiwo'ole medley of 'Somewhere Over the Rainbow' and 'What a Wonderful World' is the default when the pews hold mixed beliefs and the family wants comfort that will not argue with anybody sitting in them. Israel Kamakawiwo'ole recorded it in Honolulu in a single pass, late at night and at almost no notice, and it reached most people through the album Facing Future in 1993, which went on to become the best-known Hawaiian recording ever made. Its usefulness at a mother's funeral is a matter of scale: a ukulele and one enormous voice, so it carries feeling without volume, and small children in the room stay calm the whole way through. Put it where guests are arriving, or under the first photographs. It is a weak closer in a large church with a real organ, where its softness vanishes into the ceiling — Armstrong's 'What a Wonderful World' fills that space properly.
24.In My Life — The Beatles (1965)
A song about the people and places you loved most, which is why it became a memorial standard even though it never mentions loss. For a mother whose house was the center of the family, few songs say it better in two minutes.
25.Let It Be — The Beatles (1970)
Paul McCartney wrote it after a dream of his own mother, Mary, who died when he was fourteen. Whatever it sounds like from the outside, at its root it is a mother song, a memory of being calmed by her. That history tends to land hard once a family knows it.
26.Smile — Nat King Cole (1954)
Charlie Chaplin composed the melody; the words came later, and Cole's recording made it a standard. It is instruction and permission at once: grieve, and keep going. Suited to a mother who met hard times with a straight back.
27.Unforgettable — Nat King Cole (1951)
The 1991 duet, in which Natalie Cole sings with her late father's recording, turned this into a song about loving someone after they are gone. Calm and unhurried. A natural pick for a slideshow of a woman with a bit of old-school glamour.
28.Fields of Gold — Eva Cassidy (1996)
Sting wrote it, but Cassidy's bare guitar version, recorded the year she died at 33, is the one families play at services. Her voice makes it sound like a long look back at a good life. One of the loveliest non-religious choices there is.
Uplifting songs to celebrate her life
29.What a Wonderful World — Louis Armstrong (1967)
A song that looks around and decides it was all worth it. As the final piece of a service it sends people out on gratitude instead of grief, and every generation in the room will know it. Hard to get wrong.
30.You Are My Sunshine — Traditional (Jimmie Davis) (1940)
'You Are My Sunshine' is the one to have everybody sing together, usually at the graveside or right at the close of the service, because most of the people standing there heard it first from her. Jimmie Davis recorded it in 1940, credited alongside Charles Mitchell, and later went on to be elected governor of Louisiana twice; the state adopted it as an official song in 1977. None of that history is why it belongs at a mother's funeral. It belongs because she sang it over cribs and car seats and on long drives, and because a room full of unsteady voices doing it badly says more than any soloist doing it well. Print the words in the program so nobody has to guess at the second verse. It is the wrong song inside a formal Mass with a cantor and a fixed order — 'On Eagle's Wings' fits there without breaking the shape of the liturgy.
31.Thank You for Being a Friend — Andrew Gold (1978)
Most people know it as the Golden Girls theme, and that warmth is exactly why it works for a mother who collected people. It is a thank-you note set to music. Best at a reception or over photos, where smiling is allowed.
32.I Hope You Dance — Lee Ann Womack (2000)
Written as a parent's wish for a child's life, and families flip it at a service: this is what she wanted for all of you. It turns grief forward, toward how she would have you live. A strong closer for a celebration of life.
33.Three Little Birds — Bob Marley & the Wailers (1977)
If she was the one who told everyone things would work out, this is her outlook set to a reggae lilt. It makes people smile through tears, which some services badly need. Play it as guests leave rather than mid-service.
34.Spirit in the Sky — Norman Greenbaum (1969)
A fuzz-guitar stomp about dying well that has become a fixture of funeral exit music. It is loud, joyful, and slightly irreverent. For the mother who would have rolled her eyes at a solemn send-off, it is close to perfect.
Funeral songs for mom from her daughter
35.Slipping Through My Fingers — ABBA (1981)
Written about watching a daughter grow up too fast, and made famous all over again by the wedding scene in Mamma Mia!. Daughters play it in reverse at a mother's service, for all the school mornings they shared. It is a song about time, and grief is mostly about time.
36.The Best Day — Taylor Swift (2008)
'The Best Day' by Taylor Swift is the photo-montage song for a daughter, and it fits a mother whose love showed up in ordinary outings: the fall drives, the shopping trips, the afternoons when being small and safe was the whole event. Swift wrote it about her mother, Andrea, for the album Fearless in 2008, recorded it without telling her and played it for her at Christmas, and the video was cut from the family's own home footage. That origin is the reason it sits so easily under a screen of real photographs — it was made to accompany exactly that kind of picture. It is a daughter's thank-you with nothing dressed up in it. It will read as too young for a woman remembered mainly by adult grandchildren and a church congregation; 'In the Garden' or 'His Eye Is on the Sparrow' speak to that room in its own language.
37.Mother Like Mine — The Band Perry (2013)
It imagines how much softer the world would be if everyone had been raised by her mother. As a eulogy in song for a warm, steady mom, it is hard to top, and it is still fresh enough that most rooms will be hearing it for the first time.
38.Like My Mother Does — Lauren Alaina (2011)
A daughter measuring everything good in herself against where it came from. Alaina sang it on American Idol and it stuck as a mother tribute. For the woman who taught you how to love people, it says the thing plainly.
39.Wind Beneath My Wings — Bette Midler (1988)
'Wind Beneath My Wings' by Bette Midler is the daughter's slideshow song for a mother who did the driving, the laundry and the worrying while everybody else collected the credit. Larry Henley and Jeff Silbar had written it back in 1982, and a handful of artists cut it before Midler sang it for the film Beaches; her recording topped the chart in 1989 and carried off two of the biggest awards of that Grammy night. Its practical advantage at a funeral is recognition, because a tired room places it inside two bars and does not have to concentrate. Its practical risk is the same fact: it has been played at so many services that it can slide past unheard. Say her name over the opening piano and it lands again. For a mother who was the loud center of the family rather than its quiet engine, 'Mother Like Mine' suits her far better.
40.Goodbye's (The Saddest Word) — Celine Dion (2002)
One of the few big pop ballads sung directly to a mother, about the impossibility of the word itself. It is heavy, and it does not pretend otherwise. Choose it for the moment in the service where everyone is meant to finally cry.
Funeral songs for mom from her son
41.A Song for Mama — Boyz II Men (1997)
'A Song for Mama' by Boyz II Men is the son's song at a mother's service, and it sits best under the slideshow, where four-part harmony can fill a room while nobody is required to speak. Written and produced by Babyface for the soundtrack of Soul Food in 1997, it climbed to number seven on the Billboard Hot 100, topped the R&B chart for a fortnight, and has stood as the genre's definitive thank-you to a mother ever since. What it does is simple and genuinely difficult: it thanks her, year by year, with no complaint and no condition attached anywhere in it. For a family raised on this record, the opening bars alone will start the crying before a single word arrives. It is the wrong pick inside a formal church service that wants sacred music only — 'His Eye Is on the Sparrow' carries the same warmth within the liturgy.
42.Mama Liked the Roses — Elvis Presley (1970)
Elvis at his most tender, a son remembering his mother through the flowers she kept and the Sundays she ran. His devotion to his own mother, Gladys, was famous, and you can hear it. Right for a mother whose garden was her signature.
43.Dear Mama — 2Pac (1995)
The most honest mother tribute in hip-hop, an appreciation of a woman who raised him through poverty and her own struggles. The Library of Congress added it to the National Recording Registry. For the right family it says more than any hymn would.
44.Simple Man — Lynyrd Skynyrd (1973)
A mother's advice to her son, set to one of the most loved guitar ballads in Southern rock. Sons choose it because the voice in the song is hers, telling him how to live. A staple at services for exactly that reason.
45.The Perfect Fan — Backstreet Boys (1999)
Brian Littrell wrote it for his mother, a thank-you for the years she believed in him first. It is earnest to a fault, and at a funeral that is not a fault. For sons who grew up in the nineties it carries real weight.
46.Mama — Il Divo (2004)
An operatic thank-you from a son, sung in full voice. It suits a formal service and a family that wants scale without a hymn. The final chorus does not hold back, so keep tissues within reach.
How to narrow 46 songs down to two or three
Begin with what actually played in her house. The hymn she sang over the dishes, the record she put on while cooking Sunday dinner, the station her car radio never left: that is the real shortlist, and it beats every ranking, including this one. A mother who loved Motown should not be sent off with an opera piece because it seemed dignified. At a funeral, dignity is accuracy. If you are still trying to put words to what she was before you can choose anything at all, the songs written about mothers generally is a warmer list to read than this one.
Then check what each song assumes. The hymns assume faith, so play them only if it was hers. The church question goes further than that: the hymn group here assumes a Catholic or mainline Protestant order of service, while the gospel group assumes a homegoing where the choir and the room answer each other, and choosing across that line is not a matter of taste but of a family not recognizing its own service. 'Slipping Through My Fingers' is written from a mother's side of the story, and that is why it wrecks daughters, and that is worth knowing before the room hears it. 'Goodbye's (The Saddest Word)' will take everyone down with it, so give it a slot where that is welcome. If the grandchildren are the ones singing or speaking, what grandchildren say about their grandmothers is a better place to find their piece than this page. And a song she simply loved, about nothing in particular, outranks all of it. Recognition is the point.
One more thing, and then the choosing is yours. Every title above belongs to a stranger's mother, or to no mother at all, and most of the time that is fine: borrowing is what music is for, and in a week like this one a familiar song will hold a family up when nobody in it can find words. What you trade away is precision. A borrowed song reaches the feeling and stops short of the facts — her name, the nickname only she used, the sentence she ended every phone call with, the church basement she cooked in for thirty years. Plenty of families never need those inside a song and never miss them. Others do, months later, and there is no hurry to know which kind you are. If you want to hear what a song built out of those details actually sounds like, our sample songs will answer that in about three minutes.
- For the service itself: 'Supermarket Flowers', 'Ave Maria', or the hymn she sang most.
- For a homegoing: 'Take My Hand, Precious Lord' during the service, 'Goin' Up Yonder' on the way out.
- For the slideshow: 'The Best Day', 'Unforgettable', or 'A Song for Mama'.
- For the exit: 'What a Wonderful World', 'Three Little Birds' or 'Soon and Very Soon'.
- To sing together: 'You Are My Sunshine' or 'Amazing Grace'.
Where each song belongs in the service
Most services need only two or three songs, and each slot does a different job. The opening slot, while people find their seats, wants something familiar and quiet: the Kamakawiwo'ole medley, 'In the Garden', or 'Smile'. Nobody is fully listening yet, and that is fine. The song's job there is to lower shoulders.
The middle slot is the personal one, usually paired with a slideshow. This is where 'The Best Day', 'A Song for Mama' or 'Unforgettable' belong, because people are looking at her face while they listen. Time the photos to the song rather than the reverse; a montage that outlives its music is a hard moment nobody plans for. If a father's service was recent and the same photographs are coming out again, the songs families choose for a father sit differently under them, and it is worth not repeating the pairing.
The exit sets the tone everyone carries home. 'What a Wonderful World' sends a room out grateful, 'Soon and Very Soon' sends it out on its feet, and a congregation-sung 'Amazing Grace' sends it out together. For the mechanics of the day itself, sound checks, offline copies, who presses play, our wider guide to memorial music covers the practical side of the day in detail.
If you want the song to be about her
A few weeks after the service, the house goes quiet and the details are finally handled, and that is usually when families notice what is missing from every song on this page: her. The way she answered the phone. The thing she said at the end of every visit. The recipe nobody thought to write down. Songs written for the whole world cannot hold those details, and those are exactly the ones you will want to keep. If it helps to see what the alternative looks like, a song made to honor her life is the version of this we are asked for most.
What that takes from you is less than people expect. There is a questionnaire that runs about five minutes: what she was called, what she always said, the one afternoon you would keep if you could keep only one, and which sound she belongs to — a hymn, a country song, soul, gospel, a lullaby, an acoustic guitar and nothing else. Nothing has to be written well, and half-sentences are enough, since songwriters are used to reading around them. After that it leaves your hands. A song about her comes back within 24 hours, sung by a real voice, on a private page your family can open, play, download and pass around, and if a line is not her, you say which one and it is rewritten until it is. Where a service is close, an express route can turn it around in as little as an hour. Every step is laid out on our how we work page.
Plenty of people would rather do the writing themselves and read it aloud at the service, and that instinct is worth trusting; something halting in a daughter's own handwriting can outdo anything professional. If you want to try, a walkthrough for writing one yourself covers the practical parts: where to start, what to leave out, and how to end it without a flourish.
There is also no deadline on any of this. The year after the service is longer and quieter than the week of it — birthdays arrive, her handwriting turns up in a drawer, the people who called every day stop calling — and a good many families come back to the idea then rather than now. What people reach for in the year afterward covers that stretch. The memories keep.
A memorial song written just for her
Written from your story, with their name in the chorus.