Hi guys,
I just wanted to pop in and thank every single one of you for the love, shares, virtual hugs and- wonderfully enough- a smattering of real hugs, too. I’m still not in a place where I feel all blogtacular and “la la la kids say the darndest things” (not outwardly, anyway), but I thought I’d post a quick note about how incredibly beautiful my Dad’s memorial service was and share some music.
a) My Dad’s memorial service was incredibly beautiful. The readings, the photo arrays, the wonderful people- and the fact that people filled multiple rooms, a hallway, a stairwell, and a city block in order to pay their respects to my father. FOR THREE HOURS. (As P.J. so gorgeously stated in his eulogy about my Dad and how immensely touched and chagrined he would’ve been at the mass of mourners, “it may be easy to watch George Bailey on TV, but it’s not that easy to be him in real life. I’m so honored to be here for Dave Flynn, the richest man in town.”)
b) The music. I had the distinct honor of compiling the music for my Dad’s memorial and post-service reception. As anyone who knew my father would tell you, he liked music just a little bit. So I went for broke: I asked his bandmates (from the late ’60s onwards) to gimme their best tracks and Dave-worthy set lists. I grilled my Mom about all of “their” songs, and pestered my sisters about albums that just evoked long car trips and lazy Saturday mornings. And finally, I included anything that has ever made me say aloud “my Dad and I love this song.”
And then- AND THEN- I had to cut the playlist down to an acceptable length. That was the hard part.
Do you have Spotify? If you do, then you can have Dave’s two playlists as well. (And if you have Spotify, I’m kikiflynn. Let’s be friends.)
Here’s the one for the memorial service– mostly acoustic guitar instrumentals of the Beatles and the Beach Boys, but I cannot tell you how personally fantastic it was to sneak the Skyfall theme in there. (Fun fact: the second track, How High the Moon by Les Paul and Mary Ford, was the number 1 song on the April 25th, 1951 Billboard charts- the day my father was born.
And here’s the celebration/reception/Irish wake one. My Dad would’ve played it at a party. Heck, considering that he signed off on a good chunk of these, my Dad did play it at a party. And as for that last track? No, that’s not a random plug for my current favorite town; it’s how my Dad and his last band closed each and every (standing room-only) show.
So it’s how he closed out his final (standing room-only) show, too.
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