Funeral Blues and piano in a collection of settings of Auden poems under the title "Cabaret Songs". "Funeral Blues" is copyrighted by the Estate of W. H. Auden. According to The W. H. Auden Society, only Random House, Faber & Faber, and Curtis Brown Ltd. can give permission to reprint the text. It is the English contribution to the statue commemorating the Heysel Stadium disaster, where a retaining wall collapsed, resulting in 39 deaths on 29 May 1985, when Liverpool F.C. played Juventus FC in the European Cup final. The poem is read in its entirety in the 1994 British romantic comedy
Funeral Blues for the correct reading "wood"; this error does not occur in any other edition. In Auden's "Collected Poetry" (1945) "Funeral Blues" is poem XXX in the section "Songs and Other Musical Pieces". In his "Collected Shorter Poems 1927–1957" (1966), it 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). Britten wrote a setting of the poem for chorus and instrumental group as part of his incidental music for the first production of "The Ascent of F6" in 1937, and later arranged it for solo voice