For years now, Highway To Hell by AC/DC has been the devil's horn-in-the-air anthem of choice to celebrate one's bad old times. As it turns out, the song is now becoming increasingly popular to celebrate one's end of times.
In the band's home country of Australia, the mid-tempo rocker is showing up with stunning regularity at funerals, replacing traditional hymns and songs of faith. Also surprinsing is the increase inrequests for Led Zeppelin's Stairway To Heaven. Among popular recordings, My Way by Frank Sinatra and What A Wonderful World by Louis Armstrong still rank high at funerals.
"Some of the more unusual songs we hear actually work very well within the service because they represent the person's character," said an executive at Centennial Park, a cemetary and crematorium in the city of Adelaide.
But while tradition is changing, it's not lost entirely: The hymns Amazing Grace and Abide With Me are still along the Top 10 requested funeral songs. Shockingly, AC/DC's Shot Down In Flames is nowhere on the list. But we hear that Ballbreaker is creeping up there.
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Joe is a freelance journalist who has, over the past few decades, interviewed hundreds of guitarists for Guitar World, Guitar Player, MusicRadar and Classic Rock. He is also a former editor of Guitar World, contributing writer for Guitar Aficionado and VP of A&R for Island Records. He’s an enthusiastic guitarist, but he’s nowhere near the likes of the people he interviews. Surprisingly, his skills are more suited to the drums. If you need a drummer for your Beatles tribute band, look him up.
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