Between 1976-78, the Irish Celtic rock band Horslips released a trilogy of albums that stand as conceptual and musical masterworks. Each of them focuses on different aspects of the history of the Irish, with The Book of Invasions (1976) going all the way back to their genesis and legends. Aliens (1977) covers the mass migrations to America following the Great Famine of the mid-1800s, and chronicles the struggles of establishing oneself on new, foreign shores. The Man Who Built America (1978) continues the story of Irish immigrants in somewhat more modern times, also going into how they were part of building the new nation.
Such concepts did not ring in any drastic thematic changes for Horslips. They had already covered several aspects of Irish history in their previous works, including retellings of the war between Ulster and Connacht over a prized bull in the 10th century (The Tain, 1974), songs based on the travels of the famed 18th century harpist Turlough O’Carolan (Dancehall Sweethearts, 1974), and a winter seasonal album which may be as much about surviving the harsh winters of yore as it is about the traditional Irish Christmas (Drive the Cold Winter Away, 1975).
The Book of Invasions had introduced a new songwriting focus to the band. They were looking to create shorter and more direct songs, yet without losing the power and impact they were known for. This trend would be continued and even strengthened on the following albums. They noticed that radio responded well to material of that ilk, which contributed to their first (and only) chart entry in the UK for Book of Invasions.
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The quality of that album led the band to get an international record deal with DJM Records who were very enthusiastic about the music they were making. DJM may not have been the most major of labels, but they weren’t exactly small-time either. They had acts like Elton John, a good track record, and very decent publicity budgets for bands like Horslips. Crucially, they had an American office in New York which handled PR and distribution. It was felt it could be a fruitful partnership as far as making waves in America.
Part of the deal was that DJM would provide support for an American tour, and this enabled the band to embark on their first full-scale tour of the US in October and November of 1977. DJM were quite successful in getting their records played on radio in the territories they visited, and radio in America responded well to Horslips music. In the middle of the tour, the band’s eighth album Aliens was released on 4 November 1977, meaning they now had a new release to promote as well.
As mentioned, this second album of their ‘Irish trilogy’ deals with themes of exile and immigration. Who knows if the band’s planned American activities had inspired them as they explored the story of Irish people trying to find success and a new life in America. Likely not, but if nothing else, the album’s themes do somewhat parallel the band’s new efforts and focus of finding American success, which is interesting.
Material for the album started coming together in May 1977, when the band set up shop in Ballyvaughan for five days to take stock of what ideas they had and do some further writing. There were many new ideas, but older ideas were also brought back to see if they could spruce them up. A song like Speed the Plough dated back to 1973 and had initially been a contender for their second album The Tain, but they had struggled to find the right tempo for it. This time, things fell into place.
Some of the material would be roadtested and tweaked as necessary. The band knew the material well when a break in touring saw them return to Miracle Studios (now rebranded Lombard Sound Studios) with co-producer Alan O’Duffy to put the material down on tape. The recording sessions lasted from 16 September to 13 October.
Ghosts is one of the stand-out tracks on Aliens. It is a lovely ballad filled with melancholic and nostalgic thoughts of the old country, as life in the new one has turned out to be harder than expected.
The melody has its roots in an Irish lament called The Coolin, which is regarded as one of the most beautiful melodies in the traditional Irish folk repertoire. It has a long and complicated history, with its exact provenance unknown. It has been asserted by different authors as dating from the 13th century, from the time of Henry VIII, while others make a case for it being from the 17th century. You will find a lot of interesting discussion on this matter if you venture down that particular rabbit hole, which I will elegantly sidestep here.
Using the melody from The Coolin as a starting point, keyboardist Jim Lockhart and bassist Barry Devlin developed a musical theme that expanded on the original and took it somewhere new. Integrating traditional influences was far from a new thing for Horslips. In the Horslips biography Tall Tales by Mark Cunningham, Lockhart said, “In some cases, we would take an Irish tune and use it as the main riff so that it made it do something unexpected. The riff would generate a chord structure and then you’d superimpose a song on top of it, making sure that the two elements sat together comfortably.”
On Ghosts, they took the approach of using the starting point as a countermelody. Lockhart explains, “The tune is set up, and once a chordal framework is set, the tune acts as a counterpoint to the vocal melody, with both starting at different times and forming a complementary relationship where disparate elements illuminate each other. That was always a very satisfying way of writing.”
Guitarist Johnny Fean came up with a particularly nice guitar part for the song, inspired by the sound that came from one of his vintage guitars. He posted a picture of it on his old website in 2003, alongside the text “This, my 1960 Gibson Sunburst, was first used on the Aliens album and I used it all the way through The Man Who Built America, Short Stories Tall Tales, and The Belfast Gigs. I kept it through [post-Horslips projects] The Zen Alligators and Host when I also introduced a black Fender Stratocaster.”
“I’d bought the 1960s Sunburst in March 1977,” Fean said in the Tall Tales biography. “It was the most heavily featured guitar on Aliens. There was a certain tone about it that everybody loved. From that point I used it in the studio until we broke up the band. Around the time that I got the Sunburst, I bought a very similar looking ‘70s Sunburst Deluxe as a back-up, but I seldom played on it. Our friend Paddy Goodwin now owns that guitar.”
Ghosts arrives late on the album – as the 10th of the 11 tracks. This makes sense given that there is a sequence of events unfolding. The first songs deal with life in Ireland at the time, and hard times setting in. The migration happens. There is the anticipation and anxiety of those on the ships that cross the Atlantic. Then people arrive in America, finding themselves in new surroundings. There is plenty to dig into, and most of it is done from an emotional perspective rather than recounting historical facts. We are following those who go through these experiences, learning about their thoughts, their dreams, and their anxieties as they go through situations that are as exciting as they are challenging.
By the time we come to Ghosts, we are well into the themes of trying to survive in the new land. As the song attests to, some people are finding that they may have replaced one hardship for another.
I lived alone without you
Shadows on my wall
Ghosts in my looking glass
Voices in the hall
At first I didn’t understand
I had nothing left to sell
And although I played with fire
My life was cold as hell
There came a knocking on my door
The landlord dressed in black
Said “pack your bags and move on out
We don’t ever want you back”
And who was I to question
The logic of his schemes
When they proved there can be hope
Wherever there are dreams
The song was initially titled A Dancer After Dreams. The comprehensive Horslips box set More Than You Can Chew contains an early rehearsal version of the track from September 1977 when it still had that working title. This indicates that the name change to Ghosts happened during (or close to) the recording sessions that followed. On this earlier version, Barry Devlin sings the lead vocals with minor differences in lyrics and a different first line melody. This version feels just a tad slower than normal, or maybe just somewhat more tentative, as the band seem to feel their way through it. Devlin’s accompanying comments in the liner notes speculate that this might be the first time the full track is attempted by the band, which would explain the tentative approach.
Eamon Carr wrote the lyrics for Ghosts. They are heartfelt and pensive, and filled with more than a twist of melancholic sadness. They take the shape of reflections/thoughts from someone who is hitting yet another dead end in a series of dead ends.
In a conversation for this article in September 2023, Carr shared that the lyrics were written before the band had started their American campaign. He said, “Ghosts was written in Dublin. Not initially for any specific music that I remember. But I was immersed in the story of Irish migration and life in New York etc. for the Irish. So the pressures implied in the song were easy to imagine. But, also, there needed to be a ring of truth… so, as with Sideways to the Sun, I was able to editorialise the lyric. A brief poem but it carries an emotional punch.”
The song’s lyrics hit at the heart of the migration theme of the album, describing the thoughts and feelings of someone who has completed the migration and made it all the way to the promised land. It is quickly established that they are alone (“I lived alone without you”), meaning they could have left on their own, or gone first to establish themselves in order to bring the rest of the family over, or lost their loved one(s) somewhere along the way… any could apply.
The word “ghosts” appears only once in the song itself. Memories of loved ones can manifest themselves in the strangest ways, almost haunting them (“Shadows on my wall / Ghosts in my looking glass / Voices in the hall”) when you think you see the visage of loved ones out of the corner of your eye, somewhere in the unfocused background in the mirror, or you could suddenly imagine hearing their voice in the next room/hall. They’re not really there.
It is clear that the new situation isn’t easy. Many travelled to the new shores thinking work would be available to capable and willing labourers, and it may have been downright surprising to discover that work often was scarce or hard to come by (“At first I didn’t understand / I had nothing more to sell”), and the hardship combined with what feels like bottomless distance to your loved ones can be a crushing combination. It can create a desperation which makes it feel like there is no joy to be found in life (“My life was cold as hell”).
It is hard not to feel for the person in the song, who don’t seem to be angry or bitter about their situation – they seem more wistful and reflective. They are failing to make ends meet. Their landlord evicts them from their lodgings, presumably because they can’t pay for themselves, but they still do not give up. They don’t even blame that landlord.
What keeps them going are their dreams (“And who was I to question the logic of his schemes / When they proved there can be hope wherever there are dreams“). Never letting go of your dreams in times of hardship becomes the central theme in the song, as sometimes they are all you have left. If you lose your dreams, there is nothing to keep you going. Something could be waiting around the bend (“Thought I’d find deliverance / Down another mile“). Losing your dreams might equal losing your will to go on. It will all have been for nothing.
The fact that the song’s title was changed from A Dancer After Dreams to Ghosts is in itself interesting. Perhaps it indicates a wish to emphasise not the dreams themselves, but the things left behind. Just like a ghost, something in your life can at times seem transparent; out of reach; there but not really there. This could be past memories of loved ones, but it could also be success in the new country – always seemingly close but elusive.
The lyrical changes between the early and finished versions of the song are relatively minor, mainly changing the references to how the song’s protagonist is “a dancer after dreams” (used at the end of the 2nd and 3rd verses) with statements that sit a little better – i.e. “there can be hope wherever there are dreams” and “the love that drives me on is the love I find in dreams” respectively. This tells us that the person is looking for (and dreaming of) better times. As long as he is able to look for that dream, there is a chance to find it. It can look like blind optimism in the eye of harsh realities, but also a refusal to give up which can be crucial in those situations.
The band had three regular vocalists in Barry Devlin, Charles O’Connor, and Johnny Fean (and that doesn’t even count Jim Lockhart, who would sing the odd song on rarer occasions). Their approaches were different, with Devlin having the softest and most melodic voice in the band, O’Connor the most dramatic voice which suited the storytelling songs, while Fean had a direct voice that projected really well on the rock’n’roll songs while also showing a sensitive delivery on quieter material. This diversity made it pretty easy to figure out who should sing what. It also meant they had the means to provide some levels of harmony vocals if a song called for it.
While Devlin sang this song during the early rehearsals, it was Fean who ended up doing it on the album and on every subsequent live performance of it. Devlin was often a natural choice to sing ballads, but Fean had a sensitivity that frequently made him able to nail it when he gave it a go. He was probably at his peak as a vocalist around this time and delivered a particularly touching performance on Ghosts. There was something about this track that really suited his delivery and brought out the very best in him, which the band must have noticed as they rehearsed the song as well. They have certainly been extremely complimentary of Fean’s performance since.
In the Tall Tales biography, Fean said “We all knew that Ghosts was pretty special when we started recording it. There was a quality about it that made me think a little more carefully about how I approached the vocals. I’d been listening to the new Jack Bruce album, How’s Tricks, and was reminded of how great he sang when he slipped into his gentler, falsetto style, so I tried that and it suited the sentimental feel of the melody. I adored Jack’s voice, in the way he phrased lyrics and projected with so much power and sensitivity.”
Eamon Carr also commented: “I’m in awe at how hauntingly beautiful and complementary the music is. The same observation applies to a wide range of pieces, including Sideways To the Sun, The Blind Can’t Lead The Blind, and Everything Will Be Alright. It’s a tribute to the group ethic upon which Horslips was founded that our various individual (and often idiosyncratic) voices, which undoubtedly enriched the overall narrative, were not simply accommodated but warmly embraced.”
The song’s lyrics are written as a standalone three-verse poem. The song has no dedicated chorus, allowing the end of the verses to deliver that emotional heft by themselves by way of diverse melody lines, each of them ending with Johnny reaching for a falsetto delivery leading into instrumental passages. This does a good job of providing the lift usually associated with a chorus, and some of the instrumental passages add similar lifts.
Aliens was released on 4 November 1977, and was favourably received. Overall, the band displayed a level of musicianship which had probably never been better. Not just the individual performances, which shine on this album, but also in how tight the band is as a musical unit here. They make sharp musical turns at the drop of a needle – often at breakneck speed, effortlessly weaving in and out of each other’s parts, with everybody pulling back and stepping in at just the right time.
Ghosts is however much more of a measured performance, showcasing a different strength than a lot of the rest of the album. A piece of music may be designed to contain specific emotions, but those emotions will only be there if the performers are able to infuse this into the material through their playing and singing. In this case the result is incredible, providing a much-needed moment of reflection while also widening the album’s overall palette of styles.
Unavoidably, change of any kind will always bring some criticisms as well. For Aliens, they were less about what the album is and more about what it isn’t. From their first album onward, the band was known for their traditional Irish instrumentation. As the albums became more streamlined and more to the point musically, this was marginalised to a larger degree than before. This had started on the previous album The Book of Invasions, but that one still had enough folky elements left to keep those who looked for those moments satisfied. On Aliens, a further step was taken, which some may have felt was a step too far. The traditional influences were certainly not totally gone, but if you were a fan of the band primarily for the folkier elements, Aliens might not have ticked all your boxes.
The album had its die-hard fans though. “Aliens is their best record,” said Philip Chevron of the Pogues in the Return of the Dancehall Sweethearts documentary. “Perhaps because it was the one that brought the story the most up to date. It was great to just bring it that much more closer to the Irish in America. The Irish in exile.”
Whether you like what was done on the album, it was ultimately done for the right reasons. Horslips always kept developing and never really repeated themselves. “We shunned the idea of formula,” Lockhart said in the Tall Tales biography. “Each album was a stepping stone to the next and had a different feel and approach, with rock and roots, and acoustic and electric all blended together. I think that was still evident on Aliens as much as any earlier work, and there are some wonderful songs on it. Our music had always reflected where we were at personally, and America was increasingly where we were at. We were revelling in being a solidly-honed band, and the tightness particularly shows on Aliens.”
The band’s concerted effort to break into the States following the release of the Aliens and The Man Who Built America albums paid dividends, as both albums dented the Billboard chart and the band went over incredibly well in certain territories. This also meant that the road miles quickly started to mount up.
“Irish wasn’t a great nationality to be in England during the ‘70s,” drummer Eamon Carr told Hot Press in 2009. “We mixed in reasonably enlightened circles, but still had to put up with the Paddy thing and our van being searched. America on the other hand welcomed us with open hands – and open bars! Apart from London where you could go to the Speakeasy and hang out with Keith Moon, Brian Eno, Emerson, Lake & Palmer, The Stranglers and whoever until six o’clock in the morning, British towns closed down at eleven, which was no good to a bunch of Irish lads who’d just played a gig and wanted to go out on the tear. Horslips embraced the 24-hour culture in the States massively!”
They had to work hard for their hi-jinx though with one particularly gruelling American tour comprising of 90 dates in 90 days.
“We had a following in Philadelphia, North and South Carolina, bits of Florida, bits of California and from New York all the way up the East Coast to Canada,” Barry Devlin adds. “We also got a huge amount of radio airplay – so much so that when U2 started touring there in ‘80/‘81 Paul McGuinness came back and said, ‘All the DJs wanted to talk about in interviews was you!’ But that stopped once The Unforgettable Fire was released!”
One experience at a party they attended made it clear how Irish heritage is often misunderstood. As told by Eamon Carr in the Tall Tales biography: “An American businessman came up and said, ‘Hey guys, why don’t you play some of that Irish music for us?’ So Charles took out a concertina, Lockhart took out his whistle, and Johnny got hold of a banjo, and we all started playing some upbeat traditional tunes. The guy came over looking really pissed off and started shouting, ‘You guys are full of shit, I said play some traditional Irish music!’ We said, ‘Well, this is about 600 years old!’ ‘No,’ he replied, ‘Give us Toor-A-Loor-A’!”
Ghosts would remain a special track for Horslips for the rest of their career. It might not have been played at every gig as its subdued nature made it less of an ideal fit in the rowdy rock clubs, but it never went away, and was usually featured at most full gigs following the band’s reunion.
As the band embarked on their first set of proper reunion shows in 2009, Ghosts was an obvious inclusion in the setlist. The song was dedicated to loved ones, and notably former Horslips crewman Paul Verner who passed away in 1991.
The shows were a resounding success. Everybody had missed the band dearly, and newspapers and music websites were positively jubilant to see the band back.
The tour culminated at the O2 in Dublin in December 2009, and was recorded for an official live album Live at the O2, which was released the following year. This became the band’s third live release. It was accompanied by the concert/interview/documentary DVD The Road To The O2.
A particularly beautiful version of the track was performed on St. Patrick’s Day in 2011, when Horslips performed a full gig alongside the Ulster Orchestra. Arranged and conducted by Brian Byrne, the two-hour show featured a generous helping of 19 tracks with a symphonic accompaniment. A song like Ghosts particularly invited such an arrangement which really makes it shine. The show was recorded for BBC Northern Ireland and was initially broadcast live on radio, fortunately getting an official CD release later that year.
Ghosts has been covered by several other artists. A special mention goes out to The Legends of Tomorrow’s version of the song (featured on the 17-track CD edition of their 2022 album Days Full of Rain), which features Jim Lockhart and Barry Devlin on instrumentation. The same album also features a cover of the Horslips track Rescue Me with Devlin guesting on vocals.
Friends of Horslips all over the world were shocked and saddened to receive the news that Johnny Fean died on 28 April 2023. He was 71. The Coolin, which had given Ghosts its starting point all those years ago, was one of the pieces of music played at his Month’s Mind Mass – a requiem Mass usually celebrated about one month after a person’s death. The musicians were Jim Lockhart on flute, Paddy Goodwin on guitar, and Frank Gallagher on fiddle.
Ghosts was Johnny’s wife Maggie’s favourite Horslips song, and it made a deep impression on many, many more. As someone who sang it so wonderfully, the song will always be associated with Johnny. Having the original music that it stemmed from included in the ceremony was fitting in every way.
This article is dedicated to Johnny Fean’s memory, with thanks and appreciation to the entire band for proving there can be hope wherever there are dreams.
Sources and acknowledgements: Johnny Fean's official website (2003 web archives) "Horslips: Tall Tales – the Official Biography" by Mark Cunningham (O’Brian Press, 2013) "Horslips: On the Record" by Mark Cunningham (More Than You Can Chew box set – Madfish, 2022) Hot Press interview with Horslips (2009) Special thanks to Stephen Ferris for research pointers, additional facts and support.
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