So (a high school teacher friend wrote recently that "so" is the new "like," and I think it's true: a ubiquitous, reflexive and usually unnecessary sound we make at the beginning of an articulation of thought) last week I played songs about writing, which included a couple of titular Ghosts ("Ghost Writer," "Ghost Writing"). As this week includes Halloween, it got me to thinking about doing a show (I do a radio show on wool.fm on Tuesdays, from noon til two-ish) based on that, which was my favorite holiday when I was a kid. That started me reflecting on my kidhood: who I was as a kid--and at various other stages of life--the people who were around who no longer are, the people who are around but no longer are, and the like. I realized that ghosts are everywhere, everywhen, and haunt us in ways we often don't consider.
Life is filled with shadows and light, a chiaroscuro of people and events, of selves and selves and selves (I told you last week that I really liked triplets as examples); people immensely important to us leave us, sometimes temporarily, eventually permanently: they become ghosts, shades, shadows of remembrance. I'm pretty sure that I don't believe in ectoplasmic manifestations, although I'm afraid of them. I do know, at least sometimes, how I'm influenced by flesh and blood, and how I'm affected by the passing of certain physical beings who have been essential to me (Charles DeGaulle once said that "Cemetaries the world over are filled with indispensible men," and there's that sic again). How different life would be if we always had access to those people who were there to help form and shape us.
And yet we are formless shapeshifters ourselves, are we not? Who was I at 6, or 16, or 36? Same as I am now? Not hardly, although the ghosts of my self at various ages still inhabit me somehow, resonating, reflecting, reminding: what was, what might have been, what still could be. Praps Dickens and Einstein were on to something with the whole past/present/future/always now thing: influences come and go, selves come and go, and what we're left with, along with the hollows and ghosts in our psyches, is that person we face every day in the mirror. Protean and protein, we stumble through another day, trying to discover our "true" selves, which remain, nimble, elusive and mutable, just beyond our knowing.
So here are some songs:
The Ghosts That Haunt Me Crash Test Dummies
The Ghosts Of Saturday Night Tom Waits
Ghosts John Martyn
Ghost Riders in The Sky Johnny Cash
Ghost Woman Blues The Low Anthem
Ghost Train Marc Cohn
Ghost Train Counting Crows
Ghost Town Marc Johnson
Ghost Town Cat Stevens
Ghost Song The Doors
Ghost Of A Chance Garland Jeffreys
The Ghost Inside Me John Stewart
Ghost In This House Allison Krauss/Union Station
Ghost Indigo Girls
The Ghost Fleetwood Mac
Not Fade Away Rolling Stones
Zigzagging Through Ghostland The Radiators
Your Ghost Kristin Hersh
Walking Ghost Blues Harry Manx
O Holy Ghost Ben Arnold
Not A Robot, But A Ghost Andrew Bird
Little Ghost The White Stripes
Is There A Ghost Band Of Horses
I Don't Stand A Ghost Of A Chance With You Chet Baker
Holy Ghost Mavis Staples
Graceful Ghost George Winston
Giving Up The Ghost Marc Cohn
Ghost Dance Robbie Robertson
Ghost Blues Loudon Wainwright III
Have You Seen Me Lately? Counting Crows
Time Fades Away Neil Young
As Adam might've said, "It's all hollows, Eve...."
Damn son - that's some mighty fine writin' there! You use your keyboard prettier than a twenty dollar whore. Chiaroscuro? Now that's a word and a half.
ReplyDeleteWhere is "A Ghost is Born" by Wilco? -- that would have added nicely to this list. I agree with the above commenter -- good reflection as usual.
ReplyDeleteWell, the song's actually called Theologians, my bad. Rather than delete my above comment, I'll addend this.
Delete