Rip Gerber’s new single, “Tell Me Tell Me,” is sensitive to him. With this tender but overwhelming verse, Gerber ushers us into the holy of holies of his grief and makes his heartbreak something we can all comprehend. “Tell Me Tell Me” captures those moments we all fear and never talk about when time gets away from us, and the words we never utter hang in the air like ghosts.
Rip Gerber is a stunning new voice in the indie ranks. After his debut, “Three-Chord Town,” hit No. 1, and with a rapidly expanding fan base worldwide, Gerber brings us even closer than ever before. The accompanying music video is a fitting companion to the song, which is elegant in simplicity, visually honest, and profoundly moving. It is both a tribute and a mirror: It challenges viewers to ponder their relationships, lost opportunities, and the quiet strength of being around.
Recorded in the wake of his father’s death in the thick of the COVID-19 pandemic, the song unfurls like a slow, painful sigh. The pared-down setting gives emotion in Gerber’s voice room to breathe, the weight of unspoken discussions loading every lyric. “Tell me what you’re feeling inside,” he sings in one sentence, but it’s the collection of a lifetime of wonderings condensed into a single question. The song is not only that but a conversation with silence, a prayer echoing in the aftermath of loss.
There’s such personal legend behind “Tell Me Tell Me,” yet it’s a song to which just about anyone can relate. It’s about Gerber and his father and all of us and the moments we wish we could undo. “Tell Me Tell Me” is courageous, delicate, and wrought. It ventures where so many artists fear to go: into the silent rooms of loss to an air that sometimes listens more than it plays.
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