I’m not sure if it is the instruments, the voice, the lyrics or the melody…but some songs tend to bring up lots of emotion when they are played. During a funeral or memorial, when everyone is already feeling melancholy, these songs enhance those feelings along with a mixture of joy, nostalgia, love, loss, memories, happiness and a whole spectrum of emotions. 

From personal experience, I have also noticed that the first or second time you hear the song is when the emotions are the strongest but after listening to the same song more than a few times (unless it’s been months or years since I heard it) the effect is not as strong.

Even though most music can be defined as happy, sad, angry, etc there are some genres more likely to trigger the types of emotion that would be normal to feel at funerals: country music ballads, soft rock from the 80’s, pop ballads, love songs. Songs from these genres of music are slower, lyrically descriptive and use acoustic guitar or piano as the main instrument. 

That is why you wouldn’t often hear heavy metal or electronic dance music (EDM) at a funeral; unless the deceased had specifically requested it to be played.

I was wondering what is it about music that causes these feelings? Luckily some research has been done and this video explains it.