shayferjames
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Behind The Song: “Ghost Town”
🕑 Added 2024-02-09 22:50:40 +0000 UTCI’ve talked a bit about how Ghost Town was the first song I wrote after damaging my voice, but I haven’t talked too much about the story behind it. So here you go!
Ghost Town is about my father and gramps (L.V.S on mother’s side.) My father was only 10 years younger than gramps, and both were military men of the “silent generation.” I had many opportunities to talk with both of them about their time in the armed services and it always felt so complicated to me. While they were proud of their service, both carried with them a quiet anguish about what they’d seen and participated in. Some things made them tear up (shockingly neither were big on crying) and other things they wouldn’t talk about at all. While both of them were born and raised in New York City, both lived smaller "dear little towns" toward the end of their lives. The lyrics are a tribute not only to their bravery, but to their brokenness. No matter how much time passed they were always in some way still at war with the moments of trauma they endured. The ending progression is meant to feel like the “AMEN” at the end of a hymn.
Someday we will fall like soldiers
One day we will cry like men
Wilted words on oaken shoulders
Whisper from a violin
Here we wander around, slowly
Killing moments, in minutes and hours
We dismantle the ground
Here in our, dear little town
Now we speak in tongues and tangles
Cultivate a careless calm
Finding form in antique angles
Un-adorn the doubtful dawn
Here we wander around, slowly
Killing moments, in minutes and hours
We dismantlе the ground
Here in our, dеar little town
https://open.spotify.com/track/6QMp3HLr4ZpM63pVIEjo83?si=a67bb450b2674196
