Autoepitaph
What would you write on your tombstone?
I’ve been thinking about the question this song asks.
Not in a morbid way. In the way you think about something that follows you quietly, at a patient distance, until you finally turn around and look at it.
What would you write? If the space was limited, as it always is, and the words had to last, as they’re meant to — what would you choose? Would you reach for something true, or something that merely sounds true? Something that made people smile, or something that made them stop walking for a moment?
There’s a version of this question that’s about legacy. That’s not this version. Legacy is what other people decide after you’re gone. This is about what you would say if you finally had to say it. No context, no clarification, no explaining after the fact. Just the words and the chisel.
I think most people would surprise themselves with the answer. I think some people already know, and that knowledge is either a comfort or a weight depending on how they’ve been living.
This is the last song on Epicycles. The EP moves through uncertainty and distance and longing, and arrives here, at the oldest question there is. We put it last because it belongs last. Because some songs announce their own finality in their title. Because you can’t follow an epitaph.
What would you say if it was the last thing you could say?
We’ve been asking ourselves that too.
— Coraline
