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Question Of The Week: The Last Song You'll Ever Hear?

This week, we asked you to think about the end of your life. If you could pick it, what would you like the last song you ever hear to be? For me, it was easy. Pink Floyd's "Great Gig in the Sky," from Dark Side of the Moon would send me off into the unknown with its perfect mix of sorrow, anguish, majestic awe and celestial wonder.

We got a ton of responses from listeners, who sent in hundreds of wonderful song suggestions. We've put together Rdio and Spotify playlists with some of the highlights.

We also got some memorable stories. But one in particular was so moving and beautiful we wanted to share it here. It comes from Megan S:

"This may sound ridiculous, but last June of 2013, while I waited for my father to pass away in the ICU after suffering from fatal strokes post-open heart surgery, out of nowhere the song "That'll be the day" by Buddy Holly started playing in my head. I started humming it and couldn't get it out of there. At some point my mom and brothers left the room to stretch their legs, so I decided to download the song to my iPod and ended up sitting beside my Dad, having placed one earbud in his ear and the other in mine and I pressed play. His vitals stayed constant until about thirty-seconds left in the song when suddenly they plummeted. I fumbled for my phone to text my family to get back to the room and it took me a moment to register that he had taken his last breath mere moments after the song finished playing. My dad was born in 1950. It's not a song I grew up on and I can't explain why it came to me that day, but I'll never forget that moment. I'm not sure what song I'd like to be played out on, but if my Dad had a hand in picking his, I think he chose pretty well. :-)"

That doesn't sound ridiculous at all, Megan. Thanks for sharing. You'll find more stories and songs in the comments below.

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Robin Hilton is a producer and co-host of the popular NPR Music show All Songs Considered.