Australian church bans death metal, British company puts ashes in vinyl records

In May of 1859, a rowdy full-contact game that involves two teams battling each other for a ball that they try and rush down a field and kick between two posts was invented in Melbourne, Australia.

In the century and half since this game, known as Australian rules football, or simply, Footy, has become extraordinarily popular; it is now played in more than 30 countries and in Australia it has become the nation’s most popular winter sport, with more than 600,000 registered players. Funerals often feature the theme song from the favorite footy club of the deceased.

But in Melbourne these songs have gained a bit too much attention; last week the city’s Catholic diocese ruled that footy songs along with a host of other popular songs are not to be played at funerals.

“The music for a Catholic funeral is liturgical,” says a statement put out by the Melbourne Catholic church. “Recorded music should be avoided…Secular items are never to be sung or played at a Catholic funeral, such as romantic ballads, pop or rock music, political songs, football club songs.” Nursery rhymes are also forbidden. The church provides a few examples of appropriate funeral songs, such as “Lord have mercy”, “Holy, holy”, and “Lamb of God”.

A survey of Australian funeral songs revealed that few of the 10 most common would pass the new strict guidelines. Songs on the list included Frank Sinatra’s “My Way”, Louis Armstrong’s, “Wonderful World”, “Unforgettable” by Nat King Cole, “The Wind Beneath My Wings” by Bette Midler and  “Over the Rainbow” by Judy Garland. Another list was compiled of the top 10 most popular unusual funeral songs. These included tracks clearly against the Church’s policy: “Another One Bites the Dust” by Queen, AC/DC’s “Highway to Hell”, and “Ding Dong the Witch is Dead” from The Wizard of Oz.

What does a footy song even sound like? The Geelong Football Club, a footy team from the city of Geelong, just west of Melbourne, plays a song sung to the tune of “Toreador” from Carmen after each win:

“We are Geelong, the greatest team of all / We are Geelong; we’re always on the ball … So! Stand up and fight, remember our tradition / Stand up and fight, it’s always our ambition … And when the ball is bounced, to the final bell / Stand up and fight like hell.”

Meanwhile, a trend on the other side of the globe would have Melbourne Catholic Church officials in a fit. A British company called And Vinyl is offering a new option in cremation: have your ashes pressed into vinyl records. The ashes are sprinkled onto a raw piece of vinyl called a biscuit then pressed into the record by plates which clamp down on the record and create the grooves.

A vinyl disc pressed with cremated remains costs 2,000 pounds ($3,091) and is decorated with signature artwork and carries up to 24 minutes of music. The company’s website, which emits spooky industrial noises and features a bouncing bloody skeleton with headphones, offers several options. For those customers who still want a traditional burial they can choose to cremate merely a piece of their body and then press this reduced amount of ashes into vinyl. Customers can choose the lyrics or they can rely on the pressing process to melt the ashes into an array of random sounds that the website claims will sound like “pops and crackles”. If you want, And Vinyl will actually distribute your cremated remains record to vinyl record stores worldwide and for the steep additional fee of 10,000 pounds they will organize people to play the record at your funeral and make sure everyone dances. Pet ashes can be pressed into vinyl as well.

The owner of the company, a vinyl zealot named Jason Leach owns several real record labels and is a musician himself. If the customer can’t come up with songs for their record the website advises they can use some from Leach’s expansive collection, which includes tracks such as, “Big Girl’s Blouse”, “F*@K it” and “Bust Rucket”.

Clearly, the Catholic Church in Melbourne would not approve.