Why We Can Sing About Death But Not Talk About It

We don't talk about death. Not at dinner, not with our kids, not even with the people we love most. It's the one subject everyday conversation tends to avoid entirely. Art doesn't have that problem. Colonial Park by Richard Lindsey Take "Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Tells Your Story," the closing song from Lin-Manuel Miranda's Hamilton — the title alone says what most of us won't. Or Esperanza Spalding's "Little Fly," which doesn't dance around the subject either. She sets William Blake's...