‘Supermarket Flowers’ top funeral song, says Google and Spotify

New research, conducted by Cavendish Online, analysed Google suggest and Spotify data to determine the most popular song choices for funerals with Ed Sheeran’s Supermarket Flowers on top spot.

Using Google’s top suggestions for the search term “funeral songs”, just over 50 songs were cross-referenced with the number of plays on Spotify (for the song’s top result) before ordering the songs by most to least plays to allocate each song’s final ranking position.

Supermarket Flowers took the top spot, with 4,541,919,234 plays. With ‘See You Again’ by Wiz Khalifa claiming second place with 1,129,818,248 plays. 

Interestingly, ‘Another One Bites the Dust’ by Queen (911,909,189 plays), ‘Highway to Hell’ by AC/DC (681,636,724 plays) and ‘Stairway to Heaven’ by Led Zeppelin (506,688,822 plays) also featured in the top 5.

 Looking at the wider 50+ results, Queen, Westlife, Josh Groban, and Sarah McLachlan appeared multiple times. Mariah Carey, Elton John, The Beatles, and Celine Dion also featured.

The research also analysed the lyrics of the top 10 songs to discover which specific words featured most regularly. 53 words were repeated 5 times or more amongst the 10 songs, with “one” (39), “door” (27), and “heaven” (26) as the most common words used.

As of 29/12/2020, the 20 most popular songs included:

1. Supermarket Flowers by Ed Sheeran – 4,541,919,234 plays
2. See You Again by Wiz Khalifa – 1,129,818,248 plays
3. Another One Bites the Dust by Queen – 911,909,189 plays
4. Highway to Hell by AC/DC – 681,636,724 plays
5. Stairway to Heaven by Led Zeppelin – 506,688,822 plays
6. Lay Me Down by Sam Smith – 472,785,716 plays
7. Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door by Guns N’ Roses – 331,771,710 plays
8. Good Riddance (Time of Your Life) by Green Day – 331,290,481 plays
9. Take Me Home, Country Roads by John Denver – 315,494,924 plays
10. My Heart Will Go On by Celine Dion – 287,072,949 plays
11. Free Bird by Lynyrd Skynyrd – 286,538,441 plays
12. I’ll Be Missing You by Sean Combs – 280,974,861 plays
13. My Immortal by Evanescence – 274,519,233 plays
14. Spirit in the Sky by Norman Greenbaum – 263,917,488 plays
15. Angels by Robbie Williams – 252,784,706 plays
16. (I’ve Had) The Time of My Life by Bill Medley – 231,015,763 plays
17. If I Die Young by The Band Perry – 187,796,813 plays
18. Over the Rainbow by Israel Kamakawiwo’ole – 180,490,365 plays
19. In My Life by The Beatles – 158,851,710 plays
20. Bridge Over Troubled Water by Simon and Garfunkel – 139,931,409 plays