Song Deconstructed: ‘Falling My Friend’ by Courting Ghosts

Courting Ghosts’ Chris Hoar: “We never try to force anything and if it’s not working there’s always the pub”

By following where the music wanted to go, the Bath band conjured up the title track for their new album

By bringing touches of jazz and rock to their folky Americana sound, Bath’s Courting Ghosts have come up with a melodic and inventive sound. The five-piece of Chris Hoar (lead vocals and rhythm guitar), Marcel Rose (lead guitar), Dave Turner (keyboards), Andy Maggs (bass) and Dermot James (drums) first performed together in 2023 and are now set to release their debut album Falling My Friend. Ranging from expansive acoustic ballads to up-tempo anthems, there’s versatility to match the songcraft. Here, Hoar revisits the creation of the album’s title track…

INSPIRATION

I can still see it today, myself and Marcel sat in his kitchen with two acoustic guitars trying to find something to work with. One of us would normally have the bare bones of something to bring to the session, but at that moment we had nothing. We never try to force anything and if it’s not working there’s always the pub! We were about to give up when Marcel started strumming out a few chords. They were just C to C/G to Em but that was enough to kick-start the whole song.

We’ve never set ourselves goals when songwriting but instead tend to see where music takes us. It can start with a few chords, but something happens on a particular day at a particular time that enables you to spring from that starting point into something that eluded you even minutes before. It could be the rhythm, or the tone change, or just a change in mood, but it unlocks something, and, in this case, I think it was definitely the rhythm that sparked it.

LYRICS

In order to develop song progression and vocal melodies, I almost always tend to sing gibberish initially, a stream of consciousness that gives something more than just humming to work with. If you’re able to let yourself go and not think too much about what you are singing you can fall into the mood of the music. Words and phrases can come to the fore that fit the vibe and sometimes can be instrumental in where you take the lyrics when you finally sit down to write them properly.

In this case the lyrics for the chorus came out almost complete. Maybe it’s the simplicity of the melody or maybe it was related to what I was experiencing personally at the time, but it was pretty wonderful for it to happen like that.

To me the song is from the standpoint of someone who has almost given up and has resigned themselves to failure in relationships. They’re fatalistic in their outlook and communicate that to someone who is about to leave them, implying they knew all along about the inevitability of it happening. However, because I didn’t set out to write about anything specific, but rather to see where it took me, I know the lyrics are open to other interpretations. Some people have said they thought the song was about drug abuse, others about mental health issues, either and all can be true.

The songwriters I admire the most are those who are able to move their audience, so I always try to write lyrics in a way that I hope will connect with people and mean something to them. I love that people are able to listen to lyrics and paint their own picture and I think to be able to achieve that you need to express yourself honestly and write from your heart. Sometimes you hit it, sometimes you miss it but it’s cathartic if nothing else.

Courting Ghosts’ Chris Hoar: “If you’re able to let yourself go and not think too much about what you are singing you can fall into the mood of the music”

MUSIC

So, we had these few chords played with a rhythm that had a kind of country feel to it. Quite upbeat where you go from playing a straight C major to adding in a G on the low E string, then back to C major again – do that twice in a bar then, for the second bar, throw in an E minor then back to C major again, then repeat. It was a great starting point, and I was already developing what I thought was a good topline vocal melody for a verse.

We knew we needed a strong chorus to go with what we were producing and after playing around with a couple of chords it was obvious a G major was what was needed. Going to that, with its uplift, instantly brought a topline melody to me and we just had to go back to C major from it. The words, “You don’t want to know where I go,” came out spontaneously and, “You don’t want to see inside my soul,” came on the next iteration but this time we added a twist by halving the time we spent on C major and using the rest to go to an E minor. This enabled the vocal melody to slightly diverge over this part and introduced the E minor that would become dominant during the end of the chorus.

The, “Falling my friend,” part came driven by the vocal melody. It needed to not just repeat what had gone before and now we had introduced the E minor we had more to play with. So, we started to alternate between E minor and C as the outro of the chorus and that was the perfect platform to go back to the verse.

Bringing it to the band Falling My Friend was one of those songs that just worked. The initial rhythm spelled out what the song was going to be like and so the drum patterns, bass and keyboard lines all fell into place, (it also helps we have amazing musicians to be able to do this). The same with backing vocals. Anyone that writes songs knows sometimes you just get lucky, and the vocal melody was again something that had a huge number of options when it comes to harmonies.

IN THE STUDIO

The song has become one of the most popular songs we play and so it was a no-brainer to have it as the title track on our debut album. The recording process was painless under the fantastic stewardship of Allan Keen at Old Byre Studio, Frome, Somerset.

We recorded it pretty much as we play it live with one very big exception. Whereas Marcel will play a guitar solo live, we decided to draft in our friend and superb multi-instrumentalist, David Moss, to play a blistering fiddle solo. It really enhances the song on the recording and sets up an Americana/folk/rock feel for the rest of the album.

FINAL THOUGHTS

When I look back, I realise just how fortunate we were that day to come up with Falling My Friend. It doesn’t happen often, maybe once or twice a year, but sometimes things just fall into place with ease. And of course, it really is amazing what you can do with three chords!

Falling My Friend is out today, with the album of the same name following on 27 September. Find music and gigs at courtingghosts.co.uk

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.