“We are all ghost stories at the end of the day.”
The sidebar of my Spotify is filled with playlists, all devoted to fictional characters I have created and written about, their stories told through music that resonates with their narrative — my changeling bard proudly holds 160 songs in a playlist inbox. But there is one playlist, hidden among the rest, that is about me: “songs that actually speak to me.” Alongside “Earl Grey” by Wic Whitney and “don’t quite belong (demo)” by dodie sits “Ghost Stories” by The Narcissistic Cookbook. The band is self-described as a mudslinger/songwrecker, slamming poetic verse and storytelling over open chords and chucked strumming. “Ghost Stories” may be the band’s most popular song, but I still blast it in my headphones when I’m feeling at a loss for words.
“Ghost Stories” is about figuring out why you say “I love you” when you know you’re a terrible person. It’s about admitting that you have fatal flaws, unhealthy habits, toxic traits, and that you can see them and maybe you can do something about them, but maybe you can’t; and none of that means that you can’t love. It captures the hyper-intellectualizing I do with my emotions — my ability to rationalize insecurity and discover emotional paradox and come to no productive conclusion about myself. Because sometimes you can’t explain things. You just are.
I guess I’m scared that I’m imaginary
That I invent myself every day, so other people don’t have to
That who I really am is secondary to what I want everyone else to see
And I’m scared that I’m crazy, but God help me, I’m twice as scared I’m sane
’Cause then what excuse do I have for treating people like problems that need to be solved or explained?
Similarly, the song has no grand conclusion. It opens with the question, “You asked me why I love you,” and the final answer is “I just enjoy being around you.” The speaker meanders, spirals, whirls through therapeutic ponderings about identity and authenticity, isolation and acceptance. And when I’m doing the same thing, I put this song on. Because you don’t always need that grand conclusion. There’s a beauty in not understanding everything. Sometimes that’s the answer you need to find.
There is a ‘how,’ I suppose, don’t really understand it though
Maybe if I dug around a bit in the soil
I’d find out where all this love comes from and what it’s for
But then the question would be answered
Ghost story would be over
There’d be very little point in telling it anymore
The conclusion is that there is a beauty in not knowing where your love comes from, and there is a beauty in being a person, flaws and love and all. That conclusion is reached via cathartic poetry and percussive chords. It’s a ghost story about ghost stories.
Because we are all ghost stories at the end of the day.
