“Ghosts” is the first single from “Youth and Wisdom”, the debut album by Chas and the Skylands Gang.
The beat may be uptempo, the melody an ear-worm, but the lyrical themes are infused with a tone of searching melancholy.
Inspired by the passing of Chas’s Mom in 2022 at the age of 95, it’s a rumination on the big questions of what comes next and the meaning of it all. “My Mom was a real pistol right up to the end, and I miss her dearly. I try to trick myself into thinking that she’s still alive…in the past.”
As Chas relates it, his Mom living to 95 was both a blessing and a curse. “We were certainly blessed to have in her our lives as long as we did, but by the end she had outlived almost all her friends, which made her sad. That’s referenced in the lyrics when it mentions ‘ghosts in your address book’.”
Anyone who knows Chas knows that he’s a Beatles freak, so a McCartney reference in the lyrics shouldn’t come as a surprise. “I’ve seen Sir Paul many times in concert and he never fails to bring tears of joy to my eyes, but there is some sadness there too as he pays tribute to all the legends and loved ones that we miss so much - John, George, Linda, Jimi.”
Ultimately, despite the eternal mystery of the unknowable, the song imparts the hopeful thought that “memory takes and memory gives, something dies but something always lives.”
MVP on this cut goes to bass player Brian Kane, whose propulsive playing powers the track along for 3 minutes and 24 seconds.