This is the most tender work I do. More tender than writing about my own experience, more tender even than writing songs for weddings or anniversaries. When someone asks me to write a song for a person who has died, I am being trusted with something irreplaceable — the memory of a life, the specific texture of a love, the particular way one person existed in the world and is now gone from it.
I do not take that lightly. I have learned, through doing this work, that there is a way to approach it that honours both the person who has died and the person who is grieving. I want to share what I have learned, both for those who commission these songs from me and for anyone who wants to try writing one themselves.
Why a Memorial Song Is Different
A memorial song is not an obituary set to music. An obituary lists facts — dates, accomplishments, survivors. A memorial song is trying to do something different. It is trying to capture the presence of the person. The feeling of being in the room with them. The specific way they moved through the world that cannot be reduced to facts.
This is why the details matter so much. Not the general details — not "she was loving" or "he worked hard" — but the particular ones. The way she always had something on the stove when you arrived. The phrase he used that no one else used. The sound of her laugh. The thing he said to you once, in passing, that you have carried with you ever since.
These details are what make a memorial song feel like the person, rather than a generic tribute to loss. They are what make the listener say: yes, that's her. That's exactly her.
How to Gather the Details
Before you write — or before you commission someone to write — spend time gathering the specific memories. Not the summary of the person's life, but the sensory details. What did they smell like? What did their hands look like? What were they doing the last time you saw them happy? What did they always say? What did they never say but you always knew?
Write these down without editing. Do not worry about whether they are significant enough or poetic enough. The small details are often the most powerful — the ones that only people who truly knew the person would recognize. These are the details that make the song feel like a portrait rather than a sketch.
Also gather the feeling you want the song to carry. Not all memorial songs are sad. Some are celebratory — a life fully lived, a person who would have wanted the room to be joyful. Some are tender and quiet. Some hold both grief and gratitude simultaneously. Knowing the emotional tone you are reaching for will shape every decision in the writing.
The Structure of a Memorial Song
I typically structure memorial songs in a way that moves through three emotional territories: the presence of the person (who they were, how they existed in the world), the loss (the specific texture of their absence), and the continuation (what they left behind, how they live on in the people who loved them).
This arc — presence, loss, continuation — mirrors the natural movement of grief. It honours the reality of the loss without leaving the listener stranded in it. It acknowledges that the person is gone while also affirming that they are not entirely gone — that they live in memory, in the ways they shaped the people around them, in the love that does not end when a life does.
Not every memorial song follows this structure. Some dwell entirely in presence — in the celebration of who the person was. Some sit entirely in the loss, because that is where the griever is and the song needs to meet them there. The structure serves the song, not the other way around.
What to Do With the Song
A memorial song can be used in many ways. It can be played at a service or a gathering. It can be a private gift to the family — something they can return to when they need to feel close to the person they have lost. It can be shared publicly, as a way of honouring the person's memory with a wider community.
Whatever its use, the most important thing is that it is received. That the people who loved the person hear it and feel, in the hearing, that the person has been seen — that someone paid enough attention to capture something true about who they were.
That is the gift a memorial song gives. Not comfort, exactly, though it often brings comfort. Not closure, because grief does not close. But presence. The sense that the person is still here, in some form, in the music that was made from the story of their life.
That is worth making. That is worth receiving.
Emy J writes custom memorial songs for families and individuals. If you would like a song written for someone you have lost, visit emyj888.com/music to learn more about the commission process.