Death is always hiding in plain sight.

A few extra wrinkles catch my eye while I’m putting on mascara. The sound of sirens zipping down Broad Street. My late father’s collection of tiny wooden elephants.

There is a lovely Latin term for these discoveries: memento mori. Translated as “remember you must die,” memento mori moments sharpen our attention on life.

During the Renaissance, artists would embed images like a skull or a burning candle about to go out to achieve this aim. At some point, I jotted the phrase down, and in time it became a song called “Memento Mori,” with the first line:

White petals keep falling off
All the flowers in our kitchen,
memento mori of our love. 

As I played it live, I noticed that people had trouble understanding my favorite phrase. Probably because it’s hard to pick a lyric out of a song you are hearing for the first time, and also because it’s an obscure Latin concept plugged into a singer-songwriter ballad. The most important line in the song was getting missed at best, creating distraction at worst. So, I started to consider leaving the phrase behind and looked for an image that would better serve the listener. Ultimately, I recorded the lyric “wilting just like our love” instead of “memento mori of our love.”

Revision is the second act in the play of any song, the first act being the courage to get a draft on paper—or in your iPhone. I hope you love “Born Again.” Oh, and let me know if you think I should write a song called “Memento Mori.” Ha!