Marty "Alfred Molina" is a jazz musician, always a precarious source of livelihood even for the best-known performers. In this film, he is just barely getting by, living on the outskirts of a run-down town populated by Irish immigrants. Though this might be called a highly successful life for a jazz musician, it is hardly satisfying. He hangs out a bar called The Rose of Sharon and is friends with its irrepressible barmaid, Sheila "Maggie O'Neill". When Sheila introduces Marty to the ghostly inhabitants of a rocking chair, they embark on a series of adventures that result in satisfaction for all concerned - except for the bar's owner, who killed one of the ghosts "Marianne Faithfull" when she was among the living.