Broken Truth
I heard a song last night by a guy I’d never heard of before—Tim Grimm is his name. He’s an old guy, like me. He’s also about as wildly popular as me on social media. He was singing this song in a bar in Texas, and the silent crowed actually began to cheer as he played.
This song of his, “Broken Truth,” has about 790 likes on YouTube. Somehow, for me, that’s about perfect. I think the people who have something genuine to say don’t have sixteen million views, and their shit doesn’t go viral. This song made me think—hard. Sometimes I fear thinking is something we don’t spend a lot of time doing these days.
I listened to it four times last night; my cousin Bobby listened twice.
The line that cuts me is his, and I wish it was mine: “He’s got no poetry inside him to make him whole.” What a perfect collection of words, put together in just the right order.
This isn’t so much a song as a lamentation, as he asks the question:
Don’t it break your heart? ’Cause it breaks my heart
Damn that man who tears this country apart
He’s got no shame, he’s got no soul
He’s got no poetry inside to make him whole
The song doesn’t rage or scream; it quietly weeps. And it remembers when we were better men, and we were better than what we have now allowed ourselves to be.
Don’t it break your heart? ’Cause it breaks my heart
Damn that man who tears this country apart
He’s got no shame, he’s got no soul
He’s got no poetry inside to make him whole
The lyrics sum up everything I feel when I climb out of bed every sunrise and look at my phone to see if World War III has started yet while I slept—or if I need to get dressed and go to work.
That’s it for me this week. Here are some books to look at.
Stay safe, it’s getting weird out there!
Bill
