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...

"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...

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...

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 aft...

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: yout...

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...

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...

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...

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 w...

0:00 You came back — Holy Week opens 3:15 Opening statement: the table the world holds its breath for 8:00 Your "chair" stories from last week 12:30 Terminal lucidity — the last normal night 18:45 Good Friday in funeral service 23:00 The boy in the suit at the graveside ("Is he in the box?") 28:30 Holy Saturday — the most underrepresented day in grief 33:15 The family who made a list of "weekend j...

0:00 Cold open — why I'm doing this 3:30 First inaugural live: who this room is for 8:45 The smell of a funeral home, and what it means 14:20 The widow and her husband's chair (the story) 22:10 Grief lives in the small things, not the flowers 28:00 Q&A — what would you say to someone you've lost? 33:40 Why I write songs from this work 40:15 Acoustic performance — Feel Anything 50:00 Closing: kindn...

What if you were declared dead—only to wake up alive? In this haunting episode of The Mortals , I’m Nathan Morris, your guide through life’s darkest edges, uncovering a true story that defies logic. Dive into the chilling mystery of a person pronounced deceased, placed in a coffin, and then shockingly revived, as if pulled back by an unseen force. As a mortician, I’ve seen death’s finality, and as...

💀 What happens when death isn’t the end? In this chilling episode of The Mortals , we dive into two true, unexplainable near-death stories that defy science. First, meet Brian Miller, a man who was dead for 45 minutes, only to return with a haunting vision of a room he’d never seen. Then, uncover the horrifying case of Maria de Jesus Arroyo, who may have woken up in a morgue freezer—after being d...

Two people died... and came back with chilling stories of ghostly voices guiding them from the brink. In this gripping episode of The Mortals , we dive into the terrifying near-death experiences of Monique Garrett, a nurse who collapsed in a haunted hospital basement in Detroit, and Luis Benavidez, a chef trapped in a deadly kitchen fire in San Antonio. Both were clinically dead for minutes—Moniqu...

🔥 Two Unbelievable Near-Death Stories That Defy Explanation! 🔥 Welcome to The Mortals , where we tear down the walls between life, death, and the eerie in-between. In this chilling episode, "The Pause Between Heartbeats," host Nathan Morris dives into two lesser-known, true near-death experiences that will leave you questioning reality itself. 💀 Story 1: The Elevator Man Who 'Died...

Welcome to a chilling episode of The Mortals , where we dive into the raw edges of life, death, and the unexplainable. In "Whispers in the Silence," host Nathan Morris uncovers two true near-death experiences that will leave you questioning reality. First, meet Zack Clements, a teenage athlete whose heart stopped for 20 minutes—only to return with a haunting vision. Then, follow firefigh...

Welcome to a chilling double feature on The Mortals with Nathan Morris, where we dive into the raw, unexplainable edges of life and death. In this episode, 'Whispers from Beyond: Two Lives Returned,' we uncover two true stories of near-death experiences that defy science. First, travel to Soviet Georgia in 1976, where Dr. George Rodonaia died for over 45 minutes after a tragic accident, on...

Dive into the shadows of life’s rawest moments with The Mortals. In this gripping episode, we uncover the haunting true stories of two men—Franz Reichelt and Walter Griggs—who faced death in extraordinary ways. In 1912 Paris, Franz, a grief-driven tailor, leaps from the Eiffel Tower with a self-made parachute suit, desperate to defy gravity and honor a lost brother, only to meet a tragic fate. Dec...

Welcome to The Mortals, where we tear down the walls between life, death, and the chilling unknown. In this haunting episode, "Frozen, Forgotten... and Still Breathing," we dive into two true, lesser-known survival stories that defy all logic. First, journey to a frozen creek bed in Utah, 1981, where a young woman is found frozen solid—legally dead—yet somehow breathes again. Then, ventu...

Welcome to a chilling episode of The Mortals , where we tear down the walls between life and death to uncover real stories of survival against impossible odds. In "Jaws of the Wild & Sands of Fate," we dive into two harrowing tales that will leave you questioning the forces that decide who lives and who doesn’t. First, journey to the gator-infested swamps of Florida, where a wildlife...

Dive into the chilling unknown with The Mortals as we uncover two true stories of survival against impossible odds. On July 7, 2005, a London commuter faces the terror of the 7/7 bombings deep underground, while on December 26, 2004, a fisherman in Aceh, Indonesia, battles the devastating Indian Ocean tsunami. How did they endure when everything seemed lost? These lesser-known accounts will leave...

Dive into the shadows with The Mortals as we unravel two true stories of survival that defy all odds. From the fiery chaos of the 1996 Atlanta Olympics to the frozen depths of the Arctic tundra, witness near-death escapes that will leave you breathless. Were these survivors guided by something beyond our understanding? Join host Nathan Morris for chilling tales that question fate, purpose, and the...

Join Nathan as he delves into the harrowing survival stories of Ivan Petrov and Hana Takahashi, set against the catastrophic backdrops of Chernobyl and Hiroshima. Explore the unimaginable odds, eerie voices, and miraculous events that spared their lives amidst nuclear disasters. Nathan also shares a cautionary tale and the latest tools that help create the compelling narratives featured in 'Th...

Step into the chilling unknown with The Mortals as host Nathan Morris uncovers two true, lesser-known survival stories that will leave you questioning fate. First, a man in Missouri battles a deadly inferno in his own home, guided by a mysterious voice. Then, a young woman in Oregon survives a horrifying school shooting through an unexplainable intervention. What pulled them from the brink of deat...

Step into the chilling unknown with The Mortals as host Nathan Morris uncovers two obscure, true survival stories that will leave you questioning forces beyond our grasp. In "Whispers of Fate," journey to the frozen tundra of Labrador, Canada, where a young hunter battles a deadly blizzard guided by a mysterious voice, and to the remote jungles of Papua New Guinea, where a mother survive...