Can I have dance and electronic music played at my funeral?

We’ve covered a few different genres on the funeral-notices.co.uk blog, but dance and electronic music is one that is not in my personal wheelhouse, so it proved to be an interesting one to research.

What really struck me is the emotion that people draw from these songs that have little to no actual words in them. Take a look in the comments section on YouTube for some of the songs below, and you’ll see just how much these songs mean to people.

The answer to whether or not you can have dance or electronic music played at your funeral is of course yes, you can! Funerals should reflect the person that they are memorialising, and one great way of doing that is through the music that is played.

Rhubarb by Aphex Twin

This song is slow and ethereal, and could be a great one to play while people are walking into the funeral and finding their seats. When I mentioned earlier about the comments section on YouTube, this is probably the one I’d suggest going to have a read of, as it truly is packed with emotion.



Kusanagi by ODESZA

This is more of an uplifting song, one that speaks to childhood and memory. It could be played while people take a moment to reflect on their own memories of the deceased.



Strobe by deadmau5

This song is over 10 minutes long, so it might not be one that you could make people sit the whole way through. The first three and a half minutes slowly build up before a beat really kicks in, so it could be faded down at that point while more of the service is conducted and then brought back in five minutes later.



Promised Land by Joe Smooth

This one is more of a classic dance track, first released in 1987, and will speak to those who were out at early 90s raves. It sends a message of a brighter future, free from fighting and violence, but the ‘promised land’ could also be interpreted as the afterlife, which is particularly fitting for a funeral.



Belfast by Orbital

Described as chilled yet powerful, peaceful yet emotive, this eight minute long track with operatic vocals would make a particularly great background song to the rest of the proceedings.



The End At Pianoland (Outro) by Andrew Rayel

I know that I’ve talked about the length of these songs a couple of times already, but this last one does a lot in under four minutes. Starting with the reflective and peaceful opening minute, and building up to the hopeful and stirring crescendo, before calmly bringing you back into the room, I think this is a really great option to play at a funeral.



If you’re interested in hearing more suggestions of songs to play at a funeral, then take a look at these other genres that we’ve recently covered:

- Alternative Rock Songs to Play at a Funeral

- Alternative Indie Songs to Play at a Funeral

- Modern Pop Songs to Play at a Funeral