Tim Grimm’s ‘Rescue the Ghosts’

Thanks once again to KBCS for turning me on to yet another great new (at least for me) singer-songwriter, Tim Grimm. I’ve heard Rescue the Ghosts a few times on the air. It’s one of those songs with a haunting melody and lyrics that make you stop in your tracks when you hear them.

I emailed Tim & asked if he’d be willing to provide me with the mp3 file so I can feature the song here. He graciously sent me a copy of the CD and agreed to my hosting the song here (see link below).

Tim Grimm in the “back fields”

Tim’s website offers this biographical sketch:

A few years ago, Tim Grimm returned home to southern Indiana after several successful years as an actor in Los Angeles. He co-starred in the NBC series Reasonable Doubts and appeared in half a dozen feature films, including Clear and Present Danger opposite Harrison Ford. He had left behind (in the Midwest) a reputation as an up and coming singer/songwriter whose skills were honed at the Old Town School of Folk Music in Chicago. He also travelled and played now and again with friend Ramblin’ Jack (also contributing liner notes to Jack’s Grammy winning South Coast).

Tired of living in LA, Tim and his wife bought an old farm not far from where he grew up. It was during the time they were deciding to leave behind their lifestyle in LA, that Tim began to write songs again, inspired by the area in which he grew up.

Tim is a musical storyteller, whether writing of his own journey back to the land, describing those who never left it, or honoring those who came before. Rich with descriptive details, these are songs sung with warmth and intimacy, recognizing the inextinguishable national romance with the idea of the family farm and the realities of the vanishing landscape of rural America.

Tim’s songwriting reminds me of Guy Clark. The songwriting is simple, straightforward yet full of poetry. It closely observes everyday life and distills the small moments of joy and pleasure. Grimm’s vocal style also reminds me of Guy Clark’s unassuming way of putting across a song. It’s the voice in service to the lyric.

Rescue the Ghosts (hear it) is an evocative song which conjures a moonlit walk in a rural graveyard. There are echoes of mortality, imagining the lives of those whose headstones line the path. And finally there is the ringing affirmation of life in the song’s closing lines:

There’s a candle always burning
There is the chair that is your throne
There is a fire, there is a safe, warm bed
Where you will never sleep alone

In Rick Warren’s review of the album he mentions that Grimm’s wife, Jan Lucas, struggled with leukemia during the year in which he wrote the album. Recently, she has had a recurrence. Tim and Jan, you have our best wishes for a full remission. Keep up the fight.

Rescue the Ghosts

There are crosses on the wall
There’s a window to the sky
There’s the shadow of a young man’s head
Braced against the stones that remember the dead

And this is the place of dreams
This is the day for hope
This is the time for truth
When we rescue the ghosts

There is the sad man who smiles
There is the pathway to here
There are the actors without a stage
Who walk the stones that mark the graves

And this is the place of dreams…

There are hearts made of twigs
There are flowers made of bone
There is a picture of what once had been…
Two lovers young, sitting all alone

And this is the place of dreams…

There’s a candle always burning
There is the chair that is your throne
There is a fire, there is a safe, warm bed
Where you will never sleep alone

And this is the place of dreams…

When I asked Tim if he wanted to tell me anything about what the album and songs mean to him he suggested that I listen to the whole record as he intended it as an organic whole. In doing so, I’ve come across another song that is equally compelling. The Back Fields (the album’s title as well) is Tim’s encomium to the rural life. It is his explanation and defense of his move from the big city back to the land of his youth. It’s a deep and powerful song which conjures the happiness of life lived in the bosom of nature:

Hey, come see
The back fields with me

The boys ran out to the back fields
They didn’t mind the rain
They were chasing wild turkeys into the woods
And running back again
Their faces are red with laughter
Their hair all wild and blown
This is why we left the city
This is why we call these fields our home…

I have walked these hills for 13 years now
They have secrets still to tell
Crossed every field and every stream
I have sipped from sorrow’s well
Still your eyes they dance with laughter
Your hair all wild and blown
Like a dragonfly or a phoenix
From the dirt and from the ashes we have flown.

Tim Grimm reminds of us the authenticity of rural life and its heartfelt emotions, a life lived close to nature, in consonance with the cycle of the seasons. In this time we live in, when all seems inauthentic, when our politics are debased by rulers gone mad with power, Tim’s music helps reaffirm our faith in what this nation has been for more than two centuries and something to which we might someday return.