The Mortals

By Nathan MorrisSociety & Culture

The Mortals episodes

July 22 Three Directors. Zero Filters. - The Mortals
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 Turns
Listen: https://open.spotify.com/show/1UCaFYiU8FFIknyzkHtrlO
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2 hr
July 10 He Died Forgotten. His Voice Left the Solar System. — The Mortals
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
1 hr 1 min
July 02 I'm Done Apologizing for Being Too Many Things | The Mortals with Nathan Morris
"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
1 hr 22 min
June 25 The Songs That Empty a Room | The Mortals
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.
1 hr 3 min
June 18 He Composed Music on a NYC Sidewalk for 30 Years | The Mortals Live
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
1 hr 3 min
June 15 The Week After You Released It — Sixto Rodriguez & the Work No One Claps For
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
1 hr 6 min
May 14 The Doctor Who Wrote His Own Death — Paul Kalanithi, NDEs, And What I've Actually Seen
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
41 min
May 11 The Work Nobody Will Clap For — Vivian Maier and the Room with the Door Closed | The Mortals w/ Nathan Morris #230
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
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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
1 hr 1 min
May 10 The Room After The Room | The Mortals w/ Nathan Morris #229
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
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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
56 min
May 09 The Ones Who Showed Up | The Mortals w/ Nathan Morris #228
0:00 Welcome — three weeks in a row
2:40 Opening statement: the person who shows up on a random Tuesday
8:15 Why presence costs something — and why nobody eulogizes it
13:00 The first transfer I ever did — the hoarder's house
22:30 My brother sat for ten minutes and didn't say a word
28:00 Patterns, mundane fundamentals, and why showing up matters
34:00 The funeral home as the most alive place I worked
40:15 The mortuary school call to a stranger in Washington — "check your pulse"
44:30 The April 2023 prayer I've never told anyone
47:00 Things don't happen TO us. They happen.
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There's a specific kind of person nobody ever talks about.
Not the one who came to the funeral. Not the one who sent flowers. Not the one who texted six months later.
I mean the person who showed up on a random Tuesday. Knocked on your door. Didn't say anything. Just sat with you.
In Episode 3 of The Mortals Live, I talk about what that kind of presence actually costs another person — and why the people who do it never get eulogized.
I spent seven years walking into homes after someone died. First calls. And in every single room, there was always one person who wasn't crying. Who was just holding the hand of the person who was. Quiet. Present. Steady.
That person is the reason anyone else got through the night.
This episode is for them.
We go deep on the story of the first time someone showed up for me — a parking lot, a phone call I didn't ask for, and a man who didn't know he was saving me. We open the super chats. Come sit in the room.
JOIN THE MORTALS — Producer credits on every live show. Vote on my next cover single. Link below.
https://nathanmorrismusic.com/supporters
"Feel Anything" — Out now on all platforms.
Every Tuesday, 7pm Eastern.
Nathan Morris is a singer-songwriter and former funeral director. The Mortals Live is a weekly show about grief, music, and the people who hold the room together while everyone else falls apart.
49 min

About The Mortals

From the publisher's feed

A funeral director who writes pop songs sits down every Tuesday night and says the things most people are afraid to feel. Death, fatherhood, burnout, songwriting, walking away from the career that…