May I begin by saying that, in 2017, USA Today said that a Realtor.com study had about a third of respondents state that they would think about an opportunity to live in a spooky house. Numerous film and writing have investigated the possibility, and I know a particular case of music investigating the hereafter. That’s what this post is about, a song about living with a ghost.
By the way, from time to time, I work for a cemetery, called Maple Lawn Cemetery http://www.maplelawncemetery.org/24701.html I’ve been doing it since 2011, ten years. We care for the grounds of the cemetery, handled inquiries, and maintain a Facebook page for the business.
It’s not in isolation–on WordPress, author Jim Adams has come up with good blogging prompts, for October. His style is daily blogging that’s in good fun and shows a good aptitude for writing and a healthy interest in music.
https://jimadamsauthordotcom.wordpress.com/2020/10/24/dress-up-day/#respond
For October 25, 2020, Jim’s prompts include the word, “ghost.”
I’m discussing today, “There’s a Ghost in My House,” a Fall song, a hit for the underground Manchester band. The Fall recorded a version of a 1967 northern soul song, which is a style of UK dance music. The northern soul was a variation on the style of the day, in U.S. clubs.
With “There’s a Ghost in my House,” The Fall’s songwriter, Mark E. Smith, took the notoriety of The Fall’s noisy stage act far and wide. The Fall received some critical acclaim, despite their strange sound, and despite a large number of personnel who were members of the band over the years.
The member who was a constant was singer Mark E. Smith. “There’s a Ghost in My House” got a second life when The Fall did it for their album called Domesday Pay-Off.
I’m not sure Mark E. Smith took the northern soul scene all that seriously because he didn’t take rock music real serious, but he did work on the band a great deal, putting out a lot of records over the years, with many different directions evident. Smith drew the name The Fall from an existential novel, by Albert Camus, nothing to do with autumn time, in case that’s a point of confusion.
I assume “There’s a Ghost in My House” was The Fall’s choice to more readily relate to American music.
“There’s a Ghost in My House” is not characteristic of The Fall’s music, nor did the band, with any line-up, want to play it much. I bet that The Fall wanted radio and club play by DJs of the day. The decision created a popularity for The Fall and took them in the direction of pop.
Their earlier record albums, however, showcased few pop elements.
Brian Holland, Lamont Dozier, and Eddie Holland, of the famed Motown Records label, wrote, “There’s a Ghost in My House,” together with R. Dean Taylor. Motown Records had originated in Detroit and moved to NYC.
Without any commercial success, a music single, however ingenious, remains a failure. However, it speaks to the artist’s intentions, and there are dozens of Fall albums, going back to the beginning of the nineteen-eighties. Smith’s singing has the odd characteristic of extra syllables he added at the end of words he sang, no joke.
Mark E. Smith’s lyrics could be described as semi-nonsensical. As an artist, Smith had a lot of power because he had so many ideas by which to explore a unique approach to rock music, and by an apparent willingness to change about. By that I mean Mark E. Smith and his band always remained The Fall, but tackled different experiments, of noise-making, for their music.
I’ve read Camus, the writer whose novel The Fall inspired the name of Smith’s band, but I don’t know that Camus was an influence on Mark E. Smith’s music. H. P. Lovecraft, according to Wikipedia, is one such influence, Lovecraft the sci-fi author who died in 1937, leaving a pantheon of stories behind about monster gods ruling Earth. The difference between Camus and Lovecraft is night and day, Camus thinking very much about man’s solitude in this lifetime, Lovecraft exploring what came before and themes of despair in the face of utter monstrosity.
Despite the decline of The Fall in the late nineties, Smith found a resurgence for The Fall in the last decade of his life. Smith died when he was sixty, in 2018.
He had remained interested in experimenting with rock music and had a great career throughout his time in The Fall. Some of his remarks about other rock musicians were harsh in tone, despite his contemporaries’ respect for his music. A 2011 article in the New Yorker recalled that, despite Sonic Youth having played covers of Fall songs on BBC radio, Smith only returned the favor by declaring that the BBC should revoke Sonic Youth’s “rock license.”
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2011/11/14/plug-and-play
I hope the trying circumstances of the year to date have not been overwhelming for you.
You’re welcome to like this post, to follow the blog, or to leave a comment.
There’s a Ghost in My House
There’s a ghost in my house
The ghost of your memory
The ghost of the love that was took from me
Our love used to be
Only shadows in the past I see
Times can’t seem to’ve erased
The vision of your smiling face
Dead flowers I sent thee
I can’t get over ye
There’s a ghost in my house
I can’t hide (ghost in my house)
For the ghost of your love is inside (ghost in my house)
Keeps on haunting me (ghost in my house)
Just keeps on becalling me (ghost in my house)
Down in my tea cup
I see your face looking up
Sitting in my easy chair
I feel your fingers running through my hair
Though we’re far apart
Your spectre’s in my heart
There’s a ghost in my house
I can’t hide (ghost in my house)
For the ghost of your love is inside (ghost in my house)
Keeps on haunting me (ghost in my house)
Still just a part of me (ghost in my house)
By the way I hang my head
You can see I’m afraid
Thought my heart knows you’re gone
My mind keeps rolling on
There’s a ghost in my house
I can’t hide
In my house I am helpless
practice superstitious
I hear footsteps on the stairs
I know there’s no-one there
Keeps on haunting me
Keeps on haunting me
There’s a ghost in my house
A ghost of your memory
A ghost of the love that was took from me
Ghost in my house…
The Myth of the Independent Blogger and How I Learned to Love It 