Behind the Song: “Ghost”

I’m currently sitting in my favorite café watching two people meet for the first time for a first date. A couple of years ago, I was in this same café doing the exact same thing. I met my muse here. Deja vu is what you could call this interaction I suppose…

Back in 2021, I received a message from a local musician on Facebook looking to get together to talk about music (as musicians do) and a possible collaboration. At this point, my only body of work was Life Vest and the prospect of discussing creative processes with someone a little more experienced than me was exciting (plus, it didn’t hurt that I thought he was cute).

I knew from the second I met him that he was, in fact, going to hurt. A lot.

Have you ever had that happen? Have you ever met someone that you could see would be a tragic story, but you wanted to read it anyway? Oddly enough, the words to this song came to me almost immediately after this first meeting.

We did not wind up talking about music. We did, however, start dating.

I finished writing this song the night after he dumped me. (In case you were wondering, this is the “Lemon” guy).

I’d like to think of this song as if it were a bird’s eye view into meeting someone for the first time and knowing that they were going to break your heart. I wanted to capture the moment between two strangers who feel a soul string pulling at their hearts. In some ways, this song is a song about love at first sight, but it’s a love that passes by in a fleeting moment: people that start as strangers sometimes end there too.

Lyrically, this song is probably my favorite. I’m proud of its poeticism. This song addresses two characters rather than just one subject. It’s about giving in to temptation even though you know it means trouble. It’s about taking the risk of getting hurt because, while painful, it’s a “beautiful sadness” that only comes from really loving someone.

Musically, this song is also one of my favorites. The way Van and I recorded the song gives the vocals a sort of flitting, floating feeling. We used an instrument mic to capture this naturally occurring effect that comes with using this approach: it captures the sound of empty space and combines it with the vocal take, creating an almost distanced, dreamlike sound. It’s as if the narrator is both living in that moment and remembering the past. And that’s what makes this song so cool.

To the strangers, lovers, and ghosts… This one’s for you.

Thank you for listening.

Love,

P.S... More Behind the Song

Lyrics/Credits Liner Notes

The sister song to “Ghost”