Losing Your Place in the World: Music, Grief, and Loss

Dan and Brian spoke with Kory Floyd, a scholar of the communication of affection, and Mary Francis O’Connor, an expert on bereavement, and the effects of loss on the body, during SXSW in 2022. The conversation engages three powerful stories about how music became intertwined with loss. Brent Davis, a hospice chaplain, tells of the death of an old navy veteran; Whitney Morgan shares a story of her father and dementia, and David Harrington of the Kronos Quartet, describes the loss of music after his son’s death. These stories demonstrate how music build connections between people, and how it can help move a person through grief, if one can listen at all.