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Boy, when I'm gone a while, I'm gone a while, no?

Hope everybody had a great Holiday Season, I know I did, and I got NOTHING done music-wise (not quite, I did write a second verse for my original "Christmas Eve" which you have not heard -- not a BIAB tune, either)

Ok, Ghosts. Finally got back to working on my CD compilation, and this is the title track. I think I finally found some BIAB trax that work toward the mood I was going for.

It's a look back at some of my romantic life in my college years. It's actually a mashup of three relationships. Inspired by the fact that certain, often incredibly mundane places around town trigger certain deeply significant memories from those years. When I see these places, I can practically see us standing there, and it's all happening again. Since I still live here I see these locations all the time, driving to work, walking across campus or down Broadway.

I was riding my bicycle into work one day and it hit me that there's this place, by a chain link fence in a parking lot by the hospital that was the far point of a walk I'd taken with a young lady ... well it's a long long story, but we got there and she told me how it was, and it crushed me, and EVERY TIME I see it I can see our former selves standing there, well over 30 years ago, perpetually having that talk. And I realized I had similar memories tied to other places around town. They were my ghosts, and their ghosts, and I thought to myself ... "There's ghosts around this town"

Now I know it ain't proper English, but that's the thought so I left it that way in the lyric because that's how the song started. From that seed. And here it is, for better or worse.....

The sound ... I wanted something moody and brooding. I'd picked a cello and a bowed bass (love that bowed bass) and some simple strumming guitar (I write everything on guitar so far) but it was too... I don't know. Stiff. That was last fall. I decided maybe I wanted some moody Mark Knopflery sounding guitar, but everything BIAB had under "Dire" was too busy. But I kept playing, and stumbled on the "Dreamy" guitar bits, and SHAZZAM!!

I think this is what I was looking for. Lyrics below.

****** Song Summary *************
Title: Ghosts
File:Ghosts_With Bridge in E.SGU
Key=E , Tempo 80, Length (m:s)=3:36 intro. 70 bar chorus, from bar 1 to bar 70. Repeat x1 chorus
No Melody
Soloist track has 294 notes, Soloist harmony is < no harmony >(0)
Song is saved with Volume, Pan, Reverb, Chorus, Bank0,
Song is saved with bar changes for Volume Changes,
Style is _GETAMP.STY (Ev Pop Country w Amplitube Solo)

RealTracks in song: ~2483:Bass, Acoustic, Bowed HeldSimple Ev 085
RealTracks in song: 2558:Cello, Background SlowSwing Sw 065
RealTracks in style: ~362:Guitar, Acoustic, Strumming Ev 085
RealTracks in song: ~542:Guitar, Electric, Rhythm Dreamy Ev 085
Loop in Song: Drums\SmoothJazzBallad^5-XStRd,SnrRide
RealTracks in song: 2448:Guitar, Electric, Background, PopDreamyBrent Ev 085
RealDrums in Song: CountryEven8: a: Brushes, HiHat b: Snare, Ride

*******************

Ghosts
Phil Leith

There's ghosts around this town
I see them every day
Echoes from the past
Leave traces here today
They're tied to the locations
Of epic conversations
Brooding ruminations
Over shattered expectations
Like tincture on a tintype
I can pick her in a crowd
In a moment she is gone again
And I never turned around

On this very corner
She asks if I will stay
But self-doubt gets the best of me
And I turn and walk away

I can see her in the window
Where she hasn't been for years
By the fence around this parking lot
She confirms my greatest fears
There's a room were she is holding me
And my worries melt away
There's the bar where I will go to bleed
When there's nothing more to say

There's ghosts around this town
I see them every day
Echoes from the past
Leave traces here today
Echoes from the past
Leave traces here today

https://soundcloud.com/phil-leith/ghosts-2019

Video: https://youtu.be/2o9NfKZOgBk