The Mortals

In July 1862, a Union general who didn't like the army's bedtime call wrote a new one in pencil on the back of an envelope. Twenty-four notes. Within weeks, a captain who couldn't fire his guns over a soldier's grave played it instead. It became Taps.The night before Veterans Day, a licensed funeral director tells the true story of the bedtime song America plays at funerals, the Taps myth almost everybody believes, what happens at the graveside when those first three notes start, and why so many veterans' funerals now use a recording instead of a live bugler.We also read the songs you want playing when they carry you out (yes, even Highway to Hell), say the names of the veterans you love, talk about the cremated remains nobody comes back for, and make room for grief this holiday season.🎵 Free Funeral Song Guide: https://nathanmorrismusic.com/guide🕊️ Plan the music for a service, free: https://funeralmusicplanner.com🎄 My version of Last Christmas: https://vyd.co/NathanMorrisLastChristmasWhat song do you want playing when they carry you out? Tell me in the comments.If tonight is heavy, call or text 988. Someone is there.CHAPTERS0:00 Welcome to The Mortals Live2:41 The song that plays when they carry you out10:24 Veterans Day eve: where Taps really came from12:04 Daniel Butterfield, the general with no West Point14:24 A pencil, an envelope, and bugler Oliver Norton17:23 Captain Tidball plays Taps over a grave20:00 The Taps myth almost everybody believes21:15 Butterfield's messy name and his West Point grave23:02 Why I tell families never to say "sleeping"24:33 What happens at the graveside when Taps starts26:55 Why so many veterans get a recorded Taps28:42 Bugles Across America: ask for a live bugler29:46 You don't get to see where the work lands33:31 My carry-out song, and yours from the chat38:29 Saying the names of the veterans we love40:05 Last Christmas and showing up anyway47:23 Unclaimed cremated remains and an open casket idea51:11 Grief, the holidays, and making spaceThe Mortals Live. Every Tuesday, 7pm ET.👔 OOTD and the link. Tonight, I'm wearing: https://shopltk.com/explore/nathanmorrisGot a compliment on this shirt two minutes in, so it's a keeper.#TheMortals #Taps #VeteransDay #FuneralDirector #FuneralSongs• • •🖤 STAY CONNECTED⭐ 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/@NathanMorrisMusicTikTok: @nathanmorrismusicInstagram: @nathanmorrisX: @nathanmorris

He hung Christmas decorations in a London studio in August. He played every part himself, with two or three fingers. He gave the money away. And he died on Christmas Day.His song never hit number one while he was alive.Tonight on The Mortals, a licensed funeral director tells the story behind "Last Christmas," and what the word "last" means to every family he ever sat with in December. Nobody knows it's the last one while it's happening.We also get into whether it's okay to skip Christmas the first year after a loss, setting their place at the table, why kids belong at the funeral home, and doing the work anyway, even when you never get to see it land.My version of "Last Christmas" comes out Thursday, Nov 5: https://nathanmorrismusic.comIf tonight is heavy, call or text 988. Someone is there.What's one small thing you remember from a last Christmas with someone? Tell me in the comments.CHAPTERS0:00 Welcome to The Mortals Live1:18 Christmas trees in November2:50 George Michael died on Christmas Day4:39 February 1984: a melody in his childhood bedroom6:55 Tinsel in August, played with two or three fingers8:19 Setting the room before the family walks in9:32 Beat by Band Aid, then he gave the money away11:45 When someone dies on a holiday, the family loses the day13:30 Number one 36 years later: what legacy is14:54 The last Christmas nobody knew was the last18:22 Most of the good we do, we never see land21:39 My version of Last Christmas and the hearse cover24:05 Call your people in November26:03 Why Christmas music keeps coming back29:46 Christmas songs born from grief31:12 Ornaments, empty chairs and skipping Christmas33:28 Bring the kids to the funeral home40:13 Do the thing. Do it anyway.The Mortals Live. Every Tuesday, 7pm ET.👔 OOTD and the link. Tonight, I'm wearing: https://shopltk.com/explore/nathanmorrisFar less professional than usual, by my own admission.#TheMortals #LastChristmas #GeorgeMichael #Grief #FuneralDirector• • •🖤 STAY CONNECTED⭐ 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/@nathanmorrismusicTikTok: @nathanmorrismusicInstagram: @nathanmorrisX: @nathanmorris

Last week's show was rough. I fumbled. A lot.This week I figured out why. I overthought it. Weeks of treating my content like a math problem made it stiff and careful. My content got buns. Polished falls flat.I learned the fix in the funeral home years ago. When a family plans a service, they bring two kinds of pictures. The church directory photo. And the shoebox. People always stand in front of the shoebox.We also talked about The Comeback Room. I'm going to ask artists about the night they almost quit. First up is Julia Cole, night one of her Love You To Death Tour at Headliners in Louisville.Your homework: send the ugly text. The one you've rewritten nine times.Who's in your shoebox photo?If today feels heavy, call or text 988. Someone's there.The Mortals is live every Tuesday at 7pm ET on YouTube @nathanmorrismusic.Join The Mortals, my supporter community: https://nathanmorrismusic.com/supportersFeel Anything, my weekly email: https://nathanmorrismusic.beehiiv.comFree Funeral Song Guide: https://nathanmorrismusic.com/funeral-songs

More than 300 booths on the funeral convention floor this week. Not one of them sells the 2am phone call.The NFDA convention is in Charlotte right now, and the closing keynote is called 28,000 Days. So tonight I said the things that don't get said out loud on that floor. With respect. I love this work.The Funeral Rule only requires a written price list when you walk in the door. The FTC called funeral homes undercover, and after hours a lot of callers couldn't get a price at all. A family on the phone at 9 at night shouldn't have to call three times. Post your prices.We also get into what's actually required (your own casket, embalming, vaults), why no cremation family should ever say "we're just doing cremation," why funeral directors need permission to go home, and why this profession fights change so hard.If tonight is heavy, call or text 988. Someone's there.What's one thing you're going to stop wasting time on? Tell me in the comments.CHAPTERS0:00 Welcome to The Mortals Live3:43 The funeral convention is happening right now6:46 The Funeral Rule has a catch8:06 The FTC called funeral homes undercover9:25 My take: post your prices10:16 Your own casket, embalming, vaults: what's required12:14 Retire the word "just" for cremation14:57 No booth sells the 2am phone call16:38 Backstage with a cop who found standup19:42 28,000 days: go to the visitation24:58 Skip Thanksgiving? And the holiday death calls28:18 Funeral directors need permission to rest29:23 Why funeral service fights change39:52 Words matter: "remains" is somebody's dad47:49 Families are online. Show up there.59:29 Bitter or better after loss1:03:33 Starting over and doing the thing1:10:19 A beautiful funeral needs a beautiful songThe Mortals Live. Every Tuesday, 7pm ET.👔 OOTD and the link. Tonight, I'm wearing: https://shopltk.com/explore/nathanmorrisSweaty hoodie edition. Moving a whole studio will do that.• • •🖤 STAY CONNECTED⭐ 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/@NathanMorrisMusicTikTok: @nathanmorrismusicInstagram: @nathanmorrisX: @nathanmorris

Every family I ever sat with thought their song was different. It usually wasn't.This weekend I asked you one thing. Pick the song they'd sing in the car. Over 2,000 of you answered. Tonight we're reading them.No guest. Just me and you. The car songs. The ratchet songs you're haunting your family over. The bottle of water in the fridge nobody touches. Why most eulogies are boring and the one rule that fixes yours. And ask a funeral director anything.Homework before you leave: back up their text thread, save their voicemail somewhere besides your phone, and write your song down.If tonight is heavy, call or text 988. Someone's there.Who sang in the car at your house? Name and song. Put it in the comments.CHAPTERS0:00 Welcome to The Mortals Live1:03 Every family thinks their funeral song is different3:32 Why I said pick the car song5:31 The ratchet song: put it in writing6:53 The freezer, the water bottle, the shoes by the door9:02 Skip the resume: one story for the eulogy10:37 Tonight's homework: text thread, voicemail, your song11:55 Day 24 of starting over15:21 Doom scrolling vs long form19:18 Your funeral questions: suits, socks and glasses24:42 The deathbed exercise: find your guiding light32:36 Why funeral music defaults to the template40:21 Coming home from LA and the family that changed me53:29 Do the thing you love1:02:51 This season of The Mortals1:05:51 Burying the dead and why I keep showing upThe Mortals Live. Every Tuesday, 7pm ET.👔 OOTD and the link. Tonight, I'm wearing: https://shopltk.com/explore/nathanmorrisDressed for a funeral. Ready for a car-song sing-along.🖤 STAY CONNECTED🎵 Stream "Names I'll Never Lose": https://vyd.co/namesillneverlose⭐ 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/@nathanmorrismusicTikTok: @nathanmorrismusicInstagram: @nathanmorrisX: @nathanmorris

She couldn't sell 50 tickets on the other side of the world. Then the promoters canceled the whole tour. Her parents already had flights.She sat in a hotel room crying and asked herself one question. "What am I even doing?"One year later, 20,000 people in Australia sang her song back to her.Tonight is the first night of the new Mortals. Every week I sit down with a singer, a band or a comedian on the day their tour rolls through Louisville. We talk about the part nobody posts. Then you and I talk about it together.My first guest is Julia Cole. I caught her at Headliners Music Hall on night one of her first headline tour. We talked about almost quitting, a pair of crutches at the Opry, and why 10,000 views is 10,000 people in a room.Then I'm going to do something that scares me a little.Drop it in the chat: what's the closest you ever came to quitting?Live every Tuesday at 7pm ET.👔 OOTD and the link. Tonight, I'm wearing: https://bit.ly/4yQJ2ZgDressed for a living tribute. Nobody's getting buried tonight.🎙 Guest: Julia Cole (@juliacolemusic)"Love You To Death (Deluxe)" and her new single "Pushing Daisies" are out now everywhere.🪑 Coming to the chair:Officer Eudy, Nov 4Britton Emert, Nov 10Tim Timmons, Nov 13Touring through Louisville and want to sit down? [email protected] • •🖤 STAY CONNECTED🎵 Stream "Names I'll Never Lose": https://vyd.co/namesillneverlose⭐ 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/@nathanmorrismusicTikTok: @nathanmorrismusicInstagram: @nathanmorrisX: @nathanmorris

Last week's show was rough. I fumbled. A lot.This week I figured out why. I overthought it. Weeks of treating my content like a math problem made it stiff and careful. My content got buns. Polished falls flat.I learned the fix in the funeral home years ago. When a family plans a service, they bring two kinds of pictures. The church directory photo. And the shoebox. People always stand in front of the shoebox.We also talked about The Comeback Room. I'm going to ask artists about the night they almost quit. First up is Julia Cole, night one of her Love You To Death Tour at Headliners in Louisville.Your homework: send the ugly text. The one you've rewritten nine times.Who's in your shoebox photo?If today feels heavy, call or text 988. Someone's there.The Mortals is live every Tuesday at 7pm ET on YouTube @nathanmorrismusic.Join The Mortals, my supporter community: https://nathanmorrismusic.com/supportersStream "Names I'll Never Lose": https://vyd.co/namesillneverloseFeel Anything, my weekly email: https://nathanmorrismusic.beehiiv.comFree Funeral Song Guide: https://nathanmorrismusic.com/funeral-songs

At 10:15 on the night of April 14th, 1865, a president was carried into a stranger's back bedroom and laid diagonally across a bed that was too short for him. The most powerful family in America spent the next nine hours exactly as lost as every family I've ever sat with in a small room, hours after the phone rang.Because here's the truth nobody teaches you: in the first hours after a death, power doesn't help you. Money doesn't help you. What's left is just people in a room, not knowing what they're allowed to do.Tonight I'm walking you through it — hour by hour. Who to call first. What you do NOT have to decide tonight, no matter what anyone tells you. What the funeral home is going to ask, and what you're allowed to say no to. What to say to your job. What to say to your kids. The stuff nobody put in a pamphlet, because there is no pamphlet.I've been in that room over a thousand times — the first hour after someone has died. Same hands that used to hold a microphone, now guiding families through the worst night of their lives.If you've ever gotten that call — the one that rearranges the furniture of your whole life in one sentence — type a 1 in the chat. I want to see how many of us are in this room together tonight.You are not supposed to know what to do. Nobody does. Tonight, I'll tell you the truth about it.The Mortals Live — memento mori made warm. Look at death, so you can live louder.———🖤 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/@nathanmorrismusicTikTok: @nathanmorrismusicInstagram: @nathanmorrisX: @nathanmorris🎙️ New to streaming or looking to level up? Check out StreamYard and get $10 discount! 😍 https://streamyard.com/pal/d/4595061185642496

I have a confession. I watch strangers mow their lawns on YouTube. On purpose. For fun. When I was going through the hardest stretch of my life and rebuilding, I mowed. A lot. Just months before, I owned a major funeral home company. Then I started helping a friend with 67 yards. That turned into 87. Big yards. Small yards. Messy ones with weeds in the beds. This episode: what those straight lines did for me, and what I learned being the guy in the grass-stained khakis. What's your lawn? The thing you do when your head's too loud. Tell me in the comments. The Mortals is live every Tuesday at 7pm ET on YouTube. CHAPTERS0:00 Pre-show2:24 My confession: I watch strangers mow lawns6:38 67 yards, then 87: mowing through the rebuild12:29 The guy in the grass-stained khakis16:24 What's your lawn? The thing you do when your head's too loud28:41 The abrupt undoing: from funeral home owner to builder34:07 "Why don't you just quit?"45:01 Names I'll Never Lose48:38 The War of Art & my grandfather's double Windsor57:46 Victory in suffering & the voice that says you don't matter1:07:06 What a million Spotify streams actually pays1:14:22 Keep showing up What I'm wearing tonight: https://on.ltk.com/+pEWhnITXSoTULE3__NCYXg Join The Mortals, my supporter community: https://nathanmorrismusic.com/supporters ━━━━━━━━━━STAY CONNECTEDStream "Names I'll Never Lose": https://vyd.co/namesillneverloseWebsite: https://nathanmorrismusic.comFeel Anything newsletter: https://nathanmorrismusic.beehiiv.comWatch live on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@nathanmorrismusicInstagram: @nathanmorrisTikTok: @nathanmorrismusic 

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.CHAPTERS0:00 Cold open — glad you stayed2:00 Two men named Kevin4:00 Kevin Berthia and the coat he wore8:30 A NICU daughter and a $250,000 bill12:30 March 11, 2005 — over the rail17:00 Sergeant Kevin Briggs, the Guardian22:00 92 minutes — "the compassion in your voice"27:00 The photograph, and staying alive vs. healing34:00 Why the mundane is the whole point41:00 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/@nathanmorrismusicTikTok: @nathanmorrismusicInstagram: @nathanmorris