Funeral Blues

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

[edit] Titles and versions

The poem, commonly known by its opening words, "Stop all the clocks," exists in two very different versions: the original version in five stanzas, and the version in four stanzas from 1938 that became famous when it was recited in the film Four Weddings and a Funeral.

The original five-stanza version was a parody of a poem of mourning for a political leader written for the verse play The Ascent of F6, which Auden wrote with Christopher Isherwood in 1936. 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.

The final four-stanza version of the poem was written to be sung by the soprano Hedli Anderson, in a setting by Benjamin Britten. In this form, Auden contributed it to an anthology The Year's Poetry, 1938, compiled by Denys Kilham Roberts and Geoffrey Grigson (London, 1938), and included it in his book Another Time as one of four poems headed "Four Cabaret Songs for Miss Hedli Anderson"; the poem itself was titled "Funeral Blues" in this edition. (Auden never gave the poem any other title.)

The text in the UK edition of Another Time has a misprint, showing "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).

[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 European Cup final (now Champions League).
"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".
A modified line from this poem appeared in the 2007 video game, Portal.
it is commonly used at funerals and celebrations of life.