If you're reading this, you're probably thinking about commissioning a memorial song. And you're probably worried you won't have enough to say — that the person you've lost is too big, too complicated, too specifically theirs to be captured in writing.
This guide is about why that worry is almost always wrong, and what actually makes a memorial song land.
If you've ever written a eulogy, you know the impulse: cover the whole life. Birth, childhood, career, marriage, children, retirement, illness, death. Comprehensive but distant.
A song doesn't work that way. A 3-minute song has space for maybe 40 lines of lyrics. So instead of covering the whole life, it has to capture the feeling of the life. The five things below do that.
Names anchor the song to a specific person. Not "him" or "her" or "they" — Margaret, Daniel, Dad, Grandad, Pops. The name your family used when nobody else was listening. The pet name only you used. The way they introduced themselves at parties versus the way their mother said their name when she was cross.
One of the most powerful moments in a memorial song is often the moment their name is sung for the first time. It makes the song unmistakeably about them.
This is where most people undersell themselves. The instinct is to write big — "she was loving, kind, and generous." Those words apply to almost everyone. They don't capture anyone.
What captures someone is the specific. The mint they always had in their pocket. The way they answered the phone. The football team they shouted at. The phrase they used when something annoyed them. The walk they did every morning, rain or shine. The food they refused to eat. The film they watched every Christmas.
You don't need many of these. Three or four specific, small, true details about a person can build a more accurate picture than 500 general words. The smaller and more particular, the better.
This is the bridge between specific details and emotional truth. The details tell us who they were. This tells us what it was like to be near them.
Were people calmer in their presence? Did rooms get louder when they walked in? Did children gravitate to them at family gatherings? Did strangers tell them their life stories? Did colleagues come to them with problems? Did their grandchildren copy the way they laughed?
The thing you're trying to capture is the emotional weather they created. Some people were storms. Some were warm sunlight. Some were the steady reliable cool of an autumn morning. Whatever they were, name it.
The hardest part. Most people skip it or write something generic like "she meant everything to me." That sentence is true but it doesn't tell us anything.
The harder, more useful version: what did you learn from them? What did they show you about how to live? What part of you came from them? What did they say to you that you still think about? What did they not say that you wish they had?
You don't need to answer all of these. One specific answer, written honestly, will carry more weight than five vague ones.
This is the closing thought of the song — what the listener takes away. It's also the easiest question to answer because you've already done the work above.
If a stranger heard this song and asked you to summarise the person in one sentence, what would you say? Not their job, not their family role — the essence of them. "He never stopped laughing." "She loved fiercely and quietly." "He was the most patient man I've ever met." "She made every room feel safer."
That sentence is often where the chorus of the song comes from.
Many people who order memorial songs tell us, before they fill in the questionnaire, that they don't think they have enough to say. After they fill it in, almost all of them are surprised by how much came out.
The questionnaire is designed to draw out memories you didn't know were sitting right at the surface. The questions are gentle and specific. They don't ask you to write essays. They ask you to remember.
If you're stuck, try these prompts:
Pick the one that immediately calls something to mind. Write whatever comes. Don't try to make it good — try to make it true. Good writing comes from true memory, not the other way around.
Less than you think. We have written deeply moving songs from a single page of memories — sometimes from a single paragraph. What matters is specificity, not volume.
A questionnaire response of 300-500 words, written honestly, will produce a better song than 5,000 words of carefully composed prose. Bullet points work. Fragments work. Half-finished sentences with a dash and "you know what I mean" at the end work. Write the way you'd talk about them to a friend over a glass of wine — not the way you'd write a tribute for a newspaper.
You don't need to write a biography. We don't need to know where they were born, where they went to school, what year they got married, where they worked. Those details rarely make it into the song because they don't carry emotional weight on their own.
You don't need to write the lyrics yourself. The questionnaire isn't asking you to write the song — it's asking you to share the raw material so we can write it for you.
You don't need to be eloquent. The grammar doesn't matter. The structure doesn't matter. The honesty matters.
You don't need to relive trauma. If parts of their life were painful — illness, conflict, regret — you don't have to include them. The song can be about who they were on their best days, who they were to you, who you want them remembered as. You decide what goes in.
Sit with a cup of tea, or a glass of wine, or whatever your version of a quiet moment is. Don't open the questionnaire yet. Just think about them for ten minutes. Let the memories come without trying to direct them.
Most people, when they do this, find a specific moment that keeps returning — a small image, a single conversation, a particular afternoon. That moment is your way in. Write about that first. Everything else follows.
If after ten minutes nothing comes, ask the person who knew them best. A sibling, a spouse, a close friend. Memory is contagious — one person's recollection often unlocks another's. Some of the most beautiful memorial songs we have produced were written from memories shared by two or three family members between them.
The questionnaire takes about 10 minutes once you start. There are no wrong answers. You can take as long as you need, save what you've written and come back to it, or write it all in one sitting.
If you want to talk through what to write before starting, email hello@funeralsongs.co with a few sentences about the person and we will write back with prompts specific to them. There is no obligation to order from this conversation.
The questionnaire takes about 10 minutes. There are no wrong answers. Standard delivery in 5 days from £89.
Begin Their Song →