THE POP FILTER MIXTAPE

Best Friend’s Funeral

Guilty Cocker Spaniels – Modest Mouse

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Nobody on the planet knows what this song is about, but there is a strange and euphoric comfort that I receive from this song. When my best friend dies, I will be upset. I will need a comfortable pile of gibberish to lay my head on, and nothing fits the bill quite like this song. So when the unspeakable does happen, don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine because I’ll have this song. And like a mountain of psychotic drugs. – JRN

Holocene-Bon Iver

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It’s my best friends funeral. For obvious reasons I’d be heartbroken. But at the same time I wouldn’t want something that’s a super downer. I’ll already be depressed enough. Holocene is a really beautiful song. It would remind me of our friendship, the good times, and it would leave me with a nostalgic feeling. Anything Bon Iver does is incredible. It’s the kind of music which makes you appreciate music and the things around you. It’s a good reflective song. You can just sit there, mourn, and remember your best friend’s life. -RC

Rejoice-Andrew Jackson Jihad

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I’m going to make a pretty bold statement and empirically declare that, on a lyrical level, this is my favorite song of all time.  It is a song about a life lived to its fullest, even in the face of pain, of anguish, of suffering, of the crushing inevitability of death.  Which sounds like a bummer, because it kinda is.  But it is also the most raucous, jubilant, uncontrollably full-of-love things I have ever heard in my life, and it is how I wish to remember my friends.  As cohorts, as partners in crime, as another chunk of molecular mass floating around this big, mean, weird universe that I had the good fortune to cross paths with, for however long.-KRC

Johnny-The Violent Femmes

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“Johnny, can you tell me what it’s like to die?” This is a beautiful, warbling, horribly recorded song about a boy that’s died and left everyone behind. The singer wonders about his death, where he is now, and what he is doing. He misses him terribly and wants to know if he misses him too. He hasn’t been able to let go. It’s very depressing but if I lost my best friend I’d feel the same way. And I’d totally save creepy mementos too…-AB

Gasoline – The Silent Comedy

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I’m feeling pretty literal with this one as I’m almost certain this song is exactly about the death of your best friend. Which is super sad of course…but doesn’t the video look like the most awesome funeral  and totally how you’d like to send your bestie off if ever you had to?  It’s all about rousing celebrations of life these days and what better way than with a hipster hootenanny in the woods? It’s melodic without being moody, definitely mournful but those fiddles keep things from wallowing. And it’s damn near impossible not to feel a little bit better after joining in the sing-a-long chorus of “I am alright” over and over.   It’s also totally on the playlist for my brother’s future hypothetical funeral that I’ve been weirdly planning ever since he asked me to make sure it involved a Viking funeral pyre..that’s not too creepy right?  - AS

At Your Funeral- Saves the Day

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This is the perfect song for playing at your best friend’s funeral, especially since another writer took the song I really wanted to write about- Gasoline. But At Your Funeral is a good choice too, beyond the obvious reason that the song is fucking called At Your Funeral. Lyrically, it tells a story of watching a friend destroy themself, and trying to help them from their dire predicament. (It’s safe to assume that drowning/burning in one’s house is code for something boring like drugs and depression) The beginning of the song also let’s us know that the singer had a hand in his friend’s demise, or at least feels partly to blame. Even with that guilt, he’s willing to speak up at the funeral but is so distraught he’s unwilling to accept his friend died. Musically, it’s a catchy, fun song that makes you want to dance around. I know my best friend pretty well, and he’s going to want us to dance around while crying because he’s just a fun-loving guy even to the end. Though he’d probably be pretty mad that Amelia wrote about Gasoline instead of me. What a bitch.-MG