Songs about Ghosts
For the month of October I am taking a break from songs about cities (the theme will be back in November – I have a lot more cities to play music for), and concentrating on the theme of the month here at lyriquediscorde, and that is of “Spooky October“. This Friday’s first “Spooky October” theme is ghosts, specifically songs about ghosts. I am never quite sure if I believe in ghosts completely, at least not in the horror story sort of way, but I have felt the presence of people who have left this world before, people who were dear to me. Maybe that’s memory, or perhaps it is some kind of “haunting“. I don’t know. I do like the notion of souls never being completely gone, so for me I suppose that is enough to believe in, or at least consider.
“In one aspect, yes, I believe in ghosts, but we create them. We haunt ourselves.”
~ Laurie Halse Anderson
“I woke up as the sun was reddening; and that was the one distinct time in my life, the strangest moment of all, when I didn’t know who I was – I was far away from home, haunted and tired with travel, in a cheap hotel room I’d never seen, hearing the hiss of steam outside, and the creak of the old wood of the hotel, and footsteps upstairs, and all the sad sounds, and I looked at the cracked high ceiling and really didn’t know who I was for about fifteen strange seconds. I wasn’t scared; I was just somebody else, some stranger, and my whole life was a haunted life, the life of a ghost.”
~ Jack Kerouac, On the Road
“The people you love become ghosts inside of you, and like this you keep them alive.”
~ Rob Montgomery
“We’re all ghosts. We all carry, inside us, people who came before us.”
~ Liam Callanan
Following are my Top 5 songs about Ghosts. Do you have any?
1. The Ghost in You :: The Psychedelic Furs
“Inside you the time moves,
and she don’t fade
The ghost in you, she don’t fade away.”
“These are just ghosts that broke my heart before I met you.”
3. The Ghost Who Walks :: Karen Elson
“The ghost who walks,
she’s on the prowl,
for the man she loved,
he laid her down,
and in the tall grass he kissed her cheek,
and with a knife in his hand he plunged it deep.”
4. Ghost Riders in the Sky (live) :: Johnny Cash & Willie Nelson
“As the riders loped on by him he heard one call his name,
‘if you wanna save your soul from hell a-ridin’ on our range,
then cowboy change your ways today or with us you will ride.”
5. Your Ghost :: Kristin Hersh, featuring Michael Stipe
“If I walk down this hallway tonight,
it’s too quiet,
so, I pat through the dark,
and call you on the phone.
Push your old numbers,
and let your house ring,
til’ I wake your ghost.”
