Advertise on podcast: The Mortals

He was 22, a new dad, drowning in debt, and standing on the wrong side of the rail on the Golden Gate Bridge. The only reason he's alive today is that a highway patrol sergeant named Kevin Briggs happened to be assigned to that bridge, and walked up, and stayed for 92 minutes. Tonight we talk about that story, and what it means for you. Why the people we should worry about are never the ones crying. Why "strong" is just the word we use for people we've stopped checking on. And why showing up, even flat, even empty, even going through the motions, might be the most important thing you do all year. I'm a funeral director. I've stood in the room after. So when I say I'm glad you stayed, I mean it. If tonight moves you, get us to 20 members and I'm doing a members-only live. The membership button is right under this video. If you're struggling, you don't have to do it alone. Call or text 988. Someone will pick up. CHAPTERS 0:00 Cold open — glad you stayed 2:00 Two men named Kevin 4:00 Kevin Berthia and the coat he wore 8:30 A NICU daughter and a $250,000 bill 12:30 March 11, 2005 — over the rail 17:00 Sergeant Kevin Briggs, the Guardian 22:00 92 minutes — "the compassion in your voice" 27:00 The photograph, and staying alive vs. healing 34:00 Why the mundane is the whole point 41:00 Names I'll Never Lose — my own 3 a.m. 52:00 Your names, my music, and showing up anyway ——— 🖤 STAY CONNECTED 🎵 Stream "Names I'll Never Lose": https://laylo.com/nathanmorris ⭐ Members-only content: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0rrl2tcQlqgkkQgMR9f_0w/join 🌐 Website: https://nathanmorrismusic.com ✉️ Feel Anything newsletter: https://nathanmorrismusic.beehiiv.com 📺 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@nathanmorrismusic TikTok: @nathanmorrismusic Instagram: @nathanmorris

A funeral director's answer to the machines. AI tribute generators are everywhere now. Upload a photo, answer three questions, and out comes a eulogy. Clean. Fast. Forgettable. But here's what the machines will never know: the way someone's voice changed when they talked about their mother. The laugh that came out of nowhere at the arrangement table when a family remembered something small and beautiful. The silence that tells you more than any paragraph ever could. A real tribute isn't assembled. It's built by someone who sat across from the grief and paid attention. In this episode, Nathan talks about what gets lost when we hand the most human moment of a funeral to a prompt — and why the directors who still write by hand, who still listen first, will always matter more than any tool that autocompletes a life. This one's for every funeral director who's ever stayed up late getting the words right. ——— 🖤 STAY CONNECTED 🎵 Stream "Names I'll Never Lose": https://laylo.com/nathanmorris🌐 Website: https://nathanmorrismusic.com✉️ Feel Anything newsletter: https://nathanmorrismusic.beehiiv.com📺 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@nathanmorrismusicTikTok: @nathanmorrismusicInstagram: @nathanmorrisX: @nathanmorris

You never met them. You never shook their hand. So why does it feel like you lost a friend when the news says they're gone?nnThis week on The Mortals, funeral director and singer-songwriter Nathan Morris sits with the grief nobody gives you permission to feel — the artist whose songs raised you, the voice that was in your kitchen for fifteen years, the stranger whose passing put you flat on the floor. It's called parasocial grief, and it is not a malfunction. It's love that only had to travel one way. From a child's headstone found buried under a backyard deck, to an English village that tended an enemy airman's grave for nearly 86 years, to the signs we swear come from the people we've lost — this is a night about the names we refuse to put down, and why looking straight at death is how we learn to live louder. Bring someone with you. Drop a name you still carry in the chat — we're going to say them out loud. STAY CONNECTEDnn 🎵 Stream "Names I'll Never Lose": https://laylo.com/nathanmorris 🌐 Website: https://nathanmorrismusic.com ✉️ Feel Anything newsletter: https://nathanmorrismusic.beehiiv.comn 📺 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@nathanmorrismusic TikTok: @nathanmorrismusic Instagram: @nathanmorris X: @nathanmorris

This week on The Mortals Live, we walk through what a visitation at a funeral home is really for. Not the version you see in movies. The real thing. Why we gather, what it does for the living, and how showing up for someone in grief is one of the most important things you will ever do. Then it gets personal. I share the night I almost became the one on the other side of that room. The night everything almost ended, and what kept me here. This is a conversation about presence, purpose, and the people who hold us together when we are falling apart. If this episode sits with you, share it with someone who needs to hear it. Watch the full video episode on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W6x_THxJRVA ---STAY CONNECTED Stream "Names I'll Never Lose": https://vyd.co/NamesIllNeverLoseWebsite: https://nathanmorrismusic.comFeel Anything newsletter: https://nathanmorrismusic.beehiiv.comYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@nathanmorrismusicTikTok: @nathanmorrismusicInstagram: @nathanmorrisX: @nathanmorris

Before my new single "Names I'll Never Lose" drops Friday, I wanted to give you the other half of it. Fifteen years as a funeral director taught me something almost nobody gets to see: exactly how much one ordinary life adds up to — because I'm standing there on the day the world does the subtraction. In this episode I tell you about a man I'll call Ray, who spent his whole life certain he didn't matter... and the room that proved him wrong. The catch? He never got to see it. So tonight I'm doing something we're not supposed to be able to do: I'm going to show you your room, while you're still here to stand in it. This is the episode where I read the Wall of Names — the names you told me you'll never lose — and where I make the case that you are load-bearing in more lives than you have any idea. If you've ever felt invisible, overlooked, or like the reliable one nobody checks on, this one's for you. You're a name somebody will never lose. Let's prove it. ——— 🖤 STAY CONNECTED 🎵 Pre-save "Names I'll Never Lose" (out August 14): https://laylo.com/nathanmorris/qI8WVI 🌐 Website: https://nathanmorrismusic.com ✉️ Feel Anything newsletter: https://nathanmorrismusic.beehiiv.com 📺 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@nathanmorrismusic TikTok: @nathanmorrismusic Instagram: @nathanmorris X: @nathanmorris

There was a stretch of time where I did not want to be here anymore. Not in a dramatic way. In a quiet, tired, hopeless way.I want to tell you how I got there, because I think a lot of you know how it happens. It doesn't happen all at once. It happens in pieces. It happens the way erosion happens — you don't notice the ground leaving until you're standing on nothing.My friend and business partner died. A mentor I trusted turned around and worked to undo me. The company we built was slipping out of my hands. My marriage was coming apart. And the identity I had spent fifteen years building — the steady funeral director who walks into the worst room in someone's life and holds the floor so it doesn't collapse — that identity burned down to the ground.For a season, my own mind lied to me in my own voice. It told me that leaving would be the kind thing. That the people I loved would be better off without me. And I nearly believed it.Here's what kept me here. Four boys who did not ask for any of this. And a woman named Marilyn who refused to leave the room, even on the days I could not show up for myself.I wrote a song about it. It's called "Names I'll Never Lose." It's out August 14. The artwork is a grave with dirt coming down — but the dirt never covers my face, and it never covers the roses. Because that is exactly what this was. I was buried, and something in me would not let the dirt cover my face.Tonight I tell the whole story, why I'm still here, and I play the song for the first time.If any of this is landing where you are right now — please hear me. You are worthy. You are valued. You are important. Reach out. 988 is a lifeline, 24 hours a day. And find your quiet reasons — the faces, the names, the people you would carry no matter what. Choose the quiet reasons over the loud ones. Every single day.— NathanWatch live every Tuesday at 7 PM ET. https://youtube.com/@nathanmorrismusic🕯 Add a name to the Wall of Names → https://namesillneverlose.netlify.app🎵 Pre-save "Names I'll Never Lose" (out Aug 14) → https://laylo.com/nathanmorris/qI8WVI🎙 The Mortals podcast (Spotify, Apple, video) → 📩 Feel Anything newsletter → https://nathanmorrismusic.beehiiv.comIf you or someone you love is struggling, call or text 988. You are not alone.Walls of Names: Share a name you will never lose: https://namesillneverlose.netlify.app

Last night The Mortals Live did something it's never done before — we went live on two platforms at once. Katharine and Chris of As The Hearse Turns pulled up a chair, and what followed was the kind of conversation only people who've stood on both sides of the arrangement table can have: the real weight of this profession, the stories that stay with you, and why talking about death openly might be the most life-affirming thing we do. If you found me through their show — welcome to The Mortals. If you're one of mine, go give them a follow. You'll be glad you did. 🎙 Guests: Katharine & Chris of As The Hearse TurnsListen: https://open.spotify.com/show/1UCaFYiU8FFIknyzkHtrlO ———🖤 STAY CONNECTED 🎵 Pre-save "Names I'll Never Lose" (out August 14): https://laylo.com/nathanmorris/qI8WVI🌐 Website: https://nathanmorrismusic.com✉️ Feel Anything newsletter: https://nathanmorrismusic.beehiiv.com📺 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@nathanmorrismusicTikTok: @nathanmorrismusicInstagram: @nathanmorrisX: @nathanmorris

He was blinded as a child, preached and sang on Texas street corners for coins, and died penniless in the ashes of his own burned house. They buried him in a grave with no name. Thirty-two years later, NASA bolted his wordless, three-minute song of grief to the side of the Voyager spacecraft and launched it past the planets. Tonight, Blind Willie Johnson's voice is the farthest-traveling human sound in existence, and it will outlast the Earth itself.This is The Mortals Live. One honest hour, every Tuesday. A funeral director and songwriter talking about death, grief, presence, and the quiet lives the world walks past. Tonight: the man the world decided was worth nothing, and how wrong the world turned out to be. No script. No pitch. Just the truth, and a room where you can just be here.🖤 The Mortals community: https://stan.store/thenathanmorris🎙️ The Mortals podcast (every live becomes an episode): https://open.spotify.com/show/3OEFJ4GX7ylWSMk4p0dz82Subscribe and turn on notifications. We go live Tuesdays around 7pm ET.#themortals #blindwilliejohnson #grief #funeraldirector #voyager #legacy #music

"Pick a lane." I've heard it my whole life — funeral director, musician, divorced dad, creator — like one of them has to cancel out the others. Tonight I'm done apologizing for being all of them.This is The Mortals Live. Every Tuesday, 7PM ET. We open with a story of someone the world mostly forgot — tonight it's Gordon Parks, who refused to be just one thing his whole life — and then we get honest about the boxes other people build for us, and the ones we quietly build for ourselves out of exhaustion. If you've ever softened the truest thing about yourself with a "kind of," this one's for you.💬 Tell me in the comments: what's the one true thing about yourself you've been shrinking? I'm answering the best ones by name at the end of the show.🕯️ Send a Super/gift with the name of someone you've lost, and I'll say their name out loud on the live tonight.🧢 Grab a MORT hat tonight (memento mori — remember you'll live) and get 3 months of The Mortals free. Winner featured live at the end. - https://tr.ee/mG1jxm🖤 The Mortals community → https://stan.store/thenathanmorris🎵 My music → https://tr.ee/buBv0G🔔 Subscribe + turn on notifications so we don't lose each other. New live every Tuesday, 7PM ET.#TheMortals #NathanMorris #FuneralDirector #Grief #MementoMori #Identity #Singersongwriter

Tonight on The Mortals: the funeral songs that undo an entire room — and the one thing almost nobody thinks about. It's not which song you play. It's when. A funeral director and songwriter on grief, the music that says what we can't, and how you keep showing up when life hands you a season you didn't choose. Pull up a chair. 🖤🎵 The new song, "Just Me, Just You" → laylo.com/nathanmorris/VWYZ2m🖤 MORT hats + community → https://nathanmorrismusic.com/en-usd/products/the-mort-hat-2Subscribe + turn on notifications so we don't lose each other.

He was blind. He was self-taught. And for nearly thirty years he stood on a sidewalk on 6th Avenue in Manhattan dressed like a Viking — cloak, horned helmet, spear — while the city hurried past and called him a curiosity.His name was Moondog. What almost no one rushing by understood was that the man on the corner was a serious composer, building orchestral works in his head and on paper, year after year, whether or not anyone stopped to listen.This week on The Mortals, I tell his story — and what a man who wrote symphonies on a street corner can teach the rest of us about mortality, dignity, and refusing to die with the music still inside you. Make the work while you're still here to make it. Don't wait for the room to understand you first.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━🎵 STREAM MY MUSIC — "Just Me, Just You"https://tr.ee/iO8ojm🛍 EVERYTHING I MAKE LIVES HEREhttps://stan.store/thenathanmorris🎙 THE MORTALS — full episodes & podcasthttps://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLCH6mE8zfCHNclQOtVHb5Af0w_rPS-e_l📨 A WEEKLY EMAIL FROM ME — "Feel Anything"https://nathanmorrismusic.beehiiv.com━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━📲 FOLLOWTikTok: @nathanmorrismusicInstagram: @nathanmorrisX: @nathanmorrismsc#Moondog #TheMortals #NathanMorris #FuneralDirector #SingerSongwriter #VikingOf6thAvenue #FuneralPop #JustMeJustYou #DeathPositive #Grief #Mortality #NewMusic2026

A funeral director on what happens after you put something into the world and the room stays quiet. The story of Sixto Rodriguez — who released two albums into total silence, went back to demolition work for 25 years, and never knew that across the ocean he was a legend — and why we have to stop creating in hope of applause. On music, grief, and any goodbye you finally say out loud. 🎥 Watch: youtube.com/@nathanmorrismusic · 🎙️ The Mortals: open.spotify.com/show/3OEFJ4GX7ylWSMk4p0dz82 · 🖤 stan.store/thenathanmorris

There's a man who never had a near-death experience. He had something more honest. He had a slow death he could watch coming. And he wrote it all down before the cancer took him at 37.His name was Paul Kalanithi. Neurosurgery resident at Stanford. Eight months from finishing the longest training in medicine. Diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer he'd never earned. He went back to the operating room until his hands shook. He and his wife had a daughter anyway. He wrote a book about what dying does to a life. He died before he could finish it.Tonight we start there — with the man who told the truth on his way out — and then I'm going to tell you what I've actually seen as a funeral director, from this side of the door. People floating above their bodies. Lights at the end of tunnels. Loved ones who've already passed showing up at the foot of the bed. Stories I don't have a framework for. Stories that don't fit anywhere except in the room I stand in.This is The Mortals — Episode #231. Near-Death Experiences From A Funeral Director's Perspective.— NathanCHAPTERS0:00 Cold open — happy belated Mother's Day & tonight's setup2:30 Meet Paul Kalanithi — the writer who became a neurosurgeon5:25 Stage 4 at 36 — eight months from finishing residency8:20 22 months — what Paul did with the time he had left13:35 When Breath Becomes Air — Lucy finishes the book15:40 The funeral director's version of the same question20:00 Joe Rogan said funerals are a scam — here's my answer31:30 Socials, AI, and the song I'm finally releasing37:00 Don't wait — go do the thingWatch live every Tuesday at 7 PM ET. Subscribe so you don't miss next week.🛍 Shop my suits, gear & favorites → stan.store/thenathanmorris🕯 Join The Mortals community → stan.store/thenathanmorris🎙 Listen to the podcast → stan.store/thenathanmorris📩 Get the Sunday letter → stan.store/thenathanmorris#themortals #nathanmorris #neardeathexperience #funeraldirector #paulkalanithi #whenbreathbecomesair #grief #podcast

0:00 Cold open — sit down, grab the tea 2:00 Opening statement: October 1956, Chicago — Vivian Maier walks down a sidewalk 6:00 The 150,000 photographs nobody ever saw 13:00 Why did she do it? The question I keep sitting with 15:30 The room with the door closed — this episode's thesis 17:30 My grandfather, the double Windsor knot, and the mundane that mattered 23:00 Grief as fuel — what Vivian and I have in common 29:00 Nixon, Watergate, and dying without your name cleared 34:00 Why I keep writing songs that nobody might ever hear 43:00 The TikTok story: showing up every day for three years even when I couldn't walk 52:00 Reframing — your suffering is the storage locker 57:00 Mortals shoutouts + the next single artwork vote —— What if the most important work you'll ever do is work nobody is going to clap for? This week on The Mortals Live, I tell the story of Vivian Maier — the Chicago nanny who walked the streets for 40 years with a camera around her neck, took 150,000 photographs, never developed almost any of them, never showed them to anyone, and died alone in 2009 not knowing she would become one of the greatest American photographers of the 20th century. I think about her a lot. Because there is a room you stand in alone — the one with the door closed — where the only witness to the work is you. The recovery. The marriage. The child you're raising. The song you can't stop writing. The grief you're carrying. Nobody is paying for it. Nobody is thanking you. Nobody might ever see it. But the work is the work. And the recognition is beside the point. This is for the people in that room. Tuesdays at 7pm EST. JOIN THE MORTALS — first looks, first listens, producer credits on the next single: https://nathanmorrismusic.com/supporters "Feel Anything" — out now wherever you stream music. Nathan Morris is a singer-songwriter and former funeral director. The Mortals is a weekly conversation about grief, music, and the people who keep doing the work in the room with the door closed. #TheMortals #NathanMorris #VivianMaier #Grief #FuneralDirector #LifeAfterLoss #Mortality #Podcast

0:00 Welcome back — and the boo-boo from last week 2:45 The garage sale that worked because the sign said "good stuff, not junk" 7:00 Caramels, ASMR, and stepping outside the comfort zone 10:30 Derby week chaos in Louisville — and the 8:47 PM start time 14:15 Opening statement: Margaret, Earl, and the room after the room 24:00 Funeral directors don't hum in empty chapels (except they do) 32:00 The voice memo that became a song I haven't finished 36:30 Do I miss dead people? The honest answer. 41:00 Performing vs. being authentic — when the curtain closes 47:30 The box that opened and won't close 52:00 The 18-year-old who messaged about my videos changing his path —— What happens in the room after the room? After 228 episodes and a season away, Nathan Morris returns with the question that won't leave him alone — what waits on the other side of the threshold we all eventually cross? The Mortals is a weekly conversation about death, near-death, and the quiet thread connecting every breath to the next. Hosted by a former funeral director who's helped lay hundreds of people to rest — and lived to write songs about it. New episodes drop every Tuesday at 7 PM ET. Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3OEFJ4GX7ylWSMk4p0dz82 Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-mortals/id1436094260 Nathan's music: https://nathanmorrismusic.com #TheMortals #NathanMorris #NearDeathExperience #LifeAfterLoss #FuneralDirector #Grief #Mortality #Podcast