The Ghost of You – How I Wrote it

I wrote this song originally as part of an assignment for a class I was taking. This was a class for teachers that was taught through a museum. The objective was to learn ways to integrate visual art into your teaching curriculum. For the assignment we had to take two artworks we had seen during the class and create another artwork based on those works. So I chose two paintings that I liked and wrote a song.

This song is loosely based on a ghost story that takes place in a restaurant during the prohibition period. In this tale a woman has an adulterous affair with a  musician. The woman disappears, and comes back as a ghost, haunting the restaurant and bar where they used to hang out. In my version, the musician disappears, leaving the woman imprisoned inside her obsession with this man and their long lost love. In recovery terms she has made this man and the memory of their love, her God, and can’t let go. 

Here are the lyrics. 

The Ghost of You version 1

Words and music by Juliet Wright

verse 1:

High upon a cliff,

in 1927

rum runners put down roots

for the hair of the dog and a dance

Lonely lady spellbound

Your music was her playmate

into the night you danced

the lonely lovers dance

Verse 2:

In your arms

And under your spell

The garment of your soul was hers

Under summers restless sky

Her betrothed feared his wife’s cup

Overflowed with sin

Her tousled hair confessed

She would taste of it again

Prechorus:

Now the path beside the shore

Only whispers of your name

She walks it in the night

She’ll never be the same

Chorus 1:

The ghost of you’s as real

As the blood stains on her dress

She feels you fingers on her skin

To God she must confess

Chorus 2:

The ghost of you is as scrumptious

As the sea salt on you skin

She tastes it like it was yesterday

The dream state she is in.

Verse 3:

Bad debts and cheating

Run out of town

Gone without a trace

Your fingers in too many pies

They took you from this place.

And so you left

Without goodbye

No forwarding address

Were they promises or lies?

You left her in distress.

Verse 4:

Never to be seen again

The whites of your dark eyes

They covered their tracks well

You were gone before sunrise

She wanders the road and hits the bars

Begging for news of your return

It’s everyone’s big secret

No one says a word.

Prechorus:

Now the breeze along the shore

Only hints of your cologne

One breath of it is just enough

She no longer feels alone.

Chorus 3:

The ghost of you’s as sweet

As her finger dipped in honey

In her dreams she tastes (feels) the heat

and satisfies her longing.

Chorus 4:

The ghost of you’s as real

As the whiskey on her breath

She rattles on about yesterday

To the corpses on her left.

Bridge:

The nightmare that she never shares

from the darkness of the night

she sees your car go off the cliff

your headlights take flight.

she knows her dream was real

you never will return

except in her fantasies 

Her memories will burn.

Verse 5:

Now she sits on the

Bed in the morning

And it’s one more day to hope

To pretend you’ll return

With reality she can’t cope.

If she just keeps asking

The answers will comply

‘til then she’ll occupy the bar

and sickly wonder why.

Prechorus:

Now the path beside the shore

Only whispers of your name

She walks it in the night

She’ll never be the same

Chorus 5:  The ghost of you’s as real

As the wrinkles on her face

She drinks hard to be rid of them

Her skin as white as lace

The ghost of you’s as fresh

As the guitarist on the stage

Her drunken eyes pretend it’s you

Trapped in yesterdays cage.

Words and Music by Juliet Wright, copyright 2013, all rights reserved.