Walking with the Ghost

“Walking with the Ghost,” the Tegan and Sara song off their 2006 record So Jealous, is a skeleton of a song, just bare bones. As good as the song is, which I won’t deny, it does lack something. What that something is, can be best described by what it isn’t; or rather, what it could be. I hear similarities between “Walking with the Ghost” and Yeah Yeah Yeahs “Cheated Hearts.” What “Cheated Hearts” has is an energy that does not appear in the Tegan and Sara song. “Cheated Hearts” goes through changes whereas “Walking With the Ghost” goes nowhere. This can be a good thing; it never leaves your mind unlike the ghost it describes, but “Cheated Hearts” goes places. This can be chalked up to an issue of production, but I think it’s more than that. I have trouble believing “Walking With The Ghost” went through any changes from demo to final recording, which is not necessarily a flaw, but I would like to acknowledge the fact that “Walking With The Ghost” is what it is and that is the beginning of a song; a little seed of an idea laid to tape, as is, thought of, but never truly thought through. Listen to “Cheated Hearts,” listen to it build; bloom. It starts off full of expectation; something that isn’t found on “Walking with the Ghost.” On “Cheated Hearts” there is never a dull moment, never an empty one, “Walking with the Ghost” appears to be full of them.

What’s arguable is that unlike the chorus insists; “Walking with the Ghost” never goes “out of my mind, out of my mind” and therefore fulfills the criteria described by the word bubblegum that identifies what a good pop song is supposed to do. Stick.

But think about the song reversely. What if it was all fleshy and lacked structure? What if it appeared and drifted away like the apparition the song seems to be about? What if it did go “out of my mind, out of my mind,” would that be a bad song? Or would it be more valued for the consistency that the premise sets up? Wouldn’t it then sound more like the Zombies “She’s Not There?” Ghostly, wistful, faint, fleeting. But “Walking with the Ghost” appears to be clearly on the opposite end of the spectrum from Zombies song. In fact, it’s rather weighted, stubborn, heavy and grounded.

To offer one more song to contrast the Tegan and Sara song, I’d like to bring up the Bob Dylan “Queen Jane Approximately,” a rather bitter song, but oh so cleverly spiteful track off of Highway 61 Revisited. Like the Tegan and Sara song, “Queen Jane” refuses to go anywhere, the song cycles rather than repeats, but never leaves the place where it begins. But the song is so good that despite the track being over twice as long as “Walking with the Ghost,” it never wears upon its welcome. It’s like wishing the record needle would skip. “Queen Jane” works because it carves out a space for itself. It makes room inside the tight verses and layers of guitars and keys. This is something “Walking with the Ghost” never does.

I feel I should also acknowledge the White Stripes cover of “Walking with the Ghost,” although not an official release, it did make a brief appearance on the internet that may or may not be only recorded during a live performance. I’m unaware of any intention for covering this song, but I do hear a similarity in the structure of this song and the music of the White Stripes. Jack and Meg White dutifully employee the bare bones of rock songs on many of their consistently good albums. Even so, their cover offers many more moments of variation on their part. From fluttering vocal effects (This may actually be evidence of a poor recording quality) to breaks and pauses that interrupts the mechanical repetition of the song. I even hear a guitar solo in it.

When Karen O reaches the climax of “Cheated Hearts,” she lays the song bare, but in a much different way then the bareness of “Walking with the Ghost.” As the bridge begins, O sings “Sometimes I think I am bigger than the sound” and repeats this line until the song begins again. This is a moment of perhaps honesty, but maybe only arrogance. Still, it’s an admission; self or otherwise, that exposes the song in a way “Walking with the Ghost” never achieves. This moment is something worth waiting for. I haven’t found anything in “Walking with the Ghost” worth waiting for.