Funeral Blues

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Funeral Blues is a poem first published in 1936 by W. H. Auden.

1 Titles and versions
2 Summary
3 Appearances
4 External links

[edit] Titles and versions

The poem, known by at least four titles, originally appeared in very different form, as a five-stanza parody poem of mourning for a political leader, in the verse play The Ascent of F6 which Auden wrote with Christopher Isherwood in 1936. [1].

The poem is commonly known by its opening words, "Stop all the clocks" but the only title that Auden ever gave it was "Funeral Blues".

The original five-stanza version and the final four-stanza version have the same two first stanzas. The final three stanzas of the five-stanza version (in The Ascent of F6) are entirely different from the final two stanzas of the four-stanza version.

In its final four-stanza form, it was included in Auden's book Another Time as one of four poems headed "Four Cabaret Songs for Miss Hedli Anderson". As the title suggests, the final version of the poem was written to be sung by Hedli Anderson, in a setting by Benjamin Britten.

The text in the UK edition of Another Time has a misprint, "woods" for the correct reading "wood"; this error does not occur in any other edition.

In Auden's Collected Poetry (1945) the poem is poem XXX in the section "Songs and Other Musical Pieces". In his Collected Shorter Poems 1927-1957 (1966) the poem is poem IX in the section "Twelve Songs" in Part II, "1933-1938"; the same numbering appears in his posthumous Collected Poems (1976, 1991, 2007).

The version stated in the movie Four Weddings and a Funeral goes as follows :

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone, Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone. Silence the pianos and with muffled drum Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead Scribbling on the sky the message He is Dead. Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves, Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West, My working week and my Sunday rest, My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song; I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now; put out every one, Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun, Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood; For nothing now can ever come to any good.

[edit] Summary

"Funeral Blues" is a simple – but devastatingly emotional – poem about death, isolation, emptiness, longing and numbness. The death of a lover may or may not be a literal event; the poem is also about the end of a love affair. In four stanzas it moves from the time before the funeral (Stop all the clocks, Silence the pianos...), during the funeral itself (Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come...), after the funeral (He was my North, my South...), and the loneliness and grief that comes with it.

[edit] Appearances

The poem was set to music by Benjamin Britten and later included in a collection of settings of Auden poems under the title Cabaret Songs.
"Funeral Blues" was the poem read by Matthew (John Hannah) at the funeral of his partner Gareth (Simon Callow) in the film Four Weddings and a Funeral.
It is the English contribution to the statue commemorating the Heysel Stadium disaster (Belgium), where a retaining wall collapsed, and resulted in 39 deaths on May 29, 1985 when Liverpool FC (England) played Juventus FC (Italy) in the UEFA Cup final.
"Funeral Blues" is the first song on the Munly album Galvanized Yankee (1999).
Excerpts from "Funeral Blues" were used in the DJ Noize song "O.D.B. Tribute", from the CD "Think Differently Music: Wu-Tang Meets the Indie Culture".