Ghost by the Indigo Girls

If I were forced to choose what my favorite song is, I would probably say it is "Ghost" by the Indigo Girls. I discovered this song in the late 90s when my friend lent me his Rites of Passage CD. I ended up playing this song over and over again throughout the entire day, paying little to no attention to every other song on the CD (not because the other tracks weren't any good - they absolutely were! - but because I had become blindly obsessed with this one song). I have loved Ghost ever since and it is the most played song in my iPod.


video uploaded in youtube by zeki1208

Why exactly do I love this song? For me, Ghost is perfect on so many levels. The melody is irresistible and captivating in its melancholy. The Indigo Girls sing it so beautifully and expressively and their voices and harmonies are haunting and exquisite. The writing is artistically brilliant, like poetry set to music. The lyrical imagery is vivid and their metaphors about pain and heartbreak are ones that leave you saying "that's exactly how I feel!" There's a repeating theme of water throughout the song - the Mississipi river, the allusions to the Pied Piper of Hamelin and the thousand ships launched by the face of Helen of Troy, being baptized by someone's touch, and drowning and being unable to swim free - and this makes the overall storytelling even more compelling.

Even the way the music builds takes you on an emotional journey. It starts out subdued and reflective then it slowly escalates to more anguish in the "chorus" (I use that term loosely as this song actually has a chorus only in the melodic sense; it doesn't have a true chorus given that the only line in the entire song that is repeated is "I'm in love with your ghost.") By the time we get to the bridge, the despair is almost frantic, as is reflected in the way part of it is sung, almost like a wail. Interestingly enough, the lyrics speak about how even the most overwhelming pain starts out small and meek but grows massive, like the Mississippi River which "starts in Minnesota at a place where you could walk across with five steps down."

What makes Ghost special is the fact that the lyrics, the melody, the instrumentation, the voices and the harmonies, and the way the music builds all convey the same message and express the same thing. As such, listening to it is like a spiritual experience for me. Despite the years, though, I still can't be quite sure exactly what this song is about. Does it speak of the desperation of hanging on to something you've lost and the inability to let go? Does it articulate the difficulty of getting out of a dysfunctional or (unintentionally?) abusive relationship, or maybe even one's refusal to do so despite knowing that they should? Maybe it's about all of that. Whatever the case may be, Ghost is a truly beautiful song and I'm so glad I discovered it.