THE BELL

It’s Friday night
I hear the bell ring
Hazen High just won the game
The bell that was my son’s dream
We called him Finn
Now it rings in his name

The bell was ringing
The snow was falling down
Across the valley
Above our little town
The bell was ringing
The snow was falling

Finn heard the story of an old bell
The town would ring from time to time
Like when the team was traveling
And everyone would know
We won the game
They heard the bell
Like wind through the pines

He swore on that day
He’d find a bell to ring
For all our victories
For every little thing

Across the valley
Above our little town
The bell was ringing
The snow was falling

That sound…. came through
The chimney flue and then I knew
I screamed and ran into the cold snowfall
And as the snowflakes shimmered
In the floodlight by my neighbor’s
Time felt so compressed
Like there was no time at all

The air was buzzing
With all Finn’s energy
A sense of gathering
Of God, and Finn and me

Across the valley
Above our little town
I felt compassion
For everyone around

And for a second
I came to understand
Why we’re alive
It’s for each other
The bell was ringing
The snow was falling

It’s Friday night
I hear the bell ring
Hazen High just won the game
The bell that was my son’s dream
Now it rings in his name

This is the story behind a song I wrote that has recently been featured in a podcast. You can listen to The Bell here.

Rumble Strip is a podcast out of Vermont. Each episode is a slice of Vermont life produced by Erica Heilman, who resides in Vermont with her husband. Erica won a Peabody award for an episode of Rumble Strip called “Finn and the Bell.” Full disclosure, the episode arises out of the suicide of Tara Reese’s 17 year old son, Finn. While it is not about the suicide itself, and no details of that are provided, other than that a gun was involved, it does explore the reaction of Tara, and the aftermath of Finn’s death, including the remarkable response of the community in the small town of Hardwick in which Tara and her family live. Suffice it to say that Finn’s death was a shock to everyone. He was the student body president of Hazen High School and universally admired. The podcast is presented in the words and voice of Tara, and various of Finn’s friends and teachers. It is raw and emotional.

I wrote a song entitled “The Bell” after listening to “Finn and the Bell” several times. Though the underlying circumstances are indeed tragic, a surge of hope arises in the story. Finn had a dream that his high school would have a bell, a large steeple church type bell, which would ring at graduations, at victories in sports events, and at anything, big or small, deserving an announcement to the surrounding community. After Finn’s death, the community was able to source a bell and fulfill Finn’s dream. Tara describes in vivid detail how she frantically burst out of her home, in a dark January snowfall, and felt herself surrounded by Finn and God, and then reveals a miraculous lesson for all of us to live by, which occurred to her literally minutes after she lost Finn.

In my mind, I imagined the bell ringing throughout the town as news of Finn’s death spread. The bell became a metaphor for the community that rallied to fulfill Finn’s dream. There is a tremendous tension between the harrowing experience suffered by Tara and the community, and the beauty of her words, the ringing bell, the snowfall, and the community response. It is such a reminder that while bad things happen, there are good people out there who take care of each other. I did as well as I could to capture all of that.

During the process of writing, I reached out to Erica with a question about some dialogue in the podcast that I couldn’t understand. She responded immediately and asked me to send the song to her when it was done, which I did. She responded,
“Oh my god Jim. I'm sitting here sobbing. I have no words. What a thing you've done…….the emotional complexity of all this is staggering, as I'm sure you can imagine. I did send the song to my ENTIRE extended family and some discreet friends. They were also undone by the song, and by the GIFT you've given in writing it.”

I never imagined I would share the song within anyone, let alone the producer of Finn and the Bell. I was just doing what I do. If there is a gift here, it is Erica and Tara’s gift to all of us, by bravely creating this story. This is also a story of art begetting art, a staggering podcast inspiring a song. Ultimately, four years after Finn’s death, Erica produced a related episode in which Erica interviews Tara about the evolution of her grief. My song “The Bell” is featured at the end of the episode. Here it is: Tara — Rumble Strip.