Old Ghosts

[Nonfatman]

Here's a song that I didn't like much at first, but it has continually grown on me over the years, and now it's one of my favorites. A beautifully textured, atmospheric song with many layers to it, and I especially love the outro. The song sends shivers down my spine, and I think Ian's intention was for the song to have that effect on the listener, given the subject matter of the lyrics.



But one stanza has always puzzled me:

"And young children falter in their games
At the altar of life's hide-and-seek
Between tall pillars, where sunday-night killers
In grey raincoats peek"

What does this stanza mean within the context of the song?
Does anyone have any ideas about this?

Jeff

[Sharkdaniel]

Sept 10, 2010 14:56:59 GMT -5 Nonfatman said:

Here's a song that I didn't like much at first, but it has continually grown on me over the years, and now it's one of my favorites. A beautifully textured, atmospheric song with many layers to it, and I especially love the outro. The song sends shivers down my spine, and I think Ian's intention was for the song to have that effect on the listener, given the subject matter of the lyrics.



But one stanza has always puzzled me:

"And young children falter in their games
At the altar of life's hide-and-seek
Between tall pillars, where sunday-night killers
In grey raincoats peek"

What does this stanza mean within the context of the song?
Does anyone have any ideas about this?

Jeff

Maybe Ian thought this song that way, ´cause it had the same effect on me. At first I thought it was the worst one on Stormwatch... but over the years I began liking it!

Strange thing to be a Tull fan, Ian produces some weird retarded effects on his listeners. Some songs seem weak at first, but then, maybe years later, you realize the power that they spread. Similar thing happened to me with Journeyman.

Shark

[TM]

Agreed. This track was one of the weaker tracks for me, but now I love this song.

I have no idea what Ian was talking about in the lines Jeff referred to.

[Sharkdaniel]

To me, sounds like children playing in a cementery or some old church...

[Deleted]

When I first got the Stormwatch album this was one of my favorites. I loved hearing Ian sing harmony with himself, a very pristine and chilling song about lost celtic souls. One of my favorites. The instrumentation is great too, the intro is very wintry and rolling.

[notsoshaggy]

You know, Jeff, much as I've always liked "Old Ghosts", that verse must have kind of flown by me until now. So this is completely off the cuff, but: I get something fairly disturbing from it! Unless I'm reading the lines too literally, it strikes me as a reference--artfully rendered, of course--to the danger all children face in being set upon by adult predators. Hide-and-seek being a traditional children's game, but "life's hide-and-seek" sounds like a larger metaphor . . . for, possibly, the ways in which men hide from and seek each other in a more malevloent sense?

Whereas the description of "Sunday-night killers in grey raincoats," to me, just sounds too ominous and naturalistic to stand for anything but just what it says. So . . . adults who prey on kids (?) Possibly? Maybe? I find the verse unsetting, regardless.

[Nonfatman]

Oct 30, 2010 10:50:11 GMT -5 notsoshaggy said:

You know, Jeff, much as I've always liked "Old Ghosts", that verse must have kind of flown by me until now. So this is completely off the cuff, but: I get something fairly disturbing from it! Unless I'm reading the lines too literally, it strikes me as a reference--artfully rendered, of course--to the danger all children face in being set upon by adult predators. Hide-and-seek being a traditional children's game, but "life's hide-and-seek" sounds like a larger metaphor . . . for, possibly, the ways in which men hide from and seek each other in a more malevloent sense?

Whereas the description of "Sunday-night killers in grey raincoats," to me, just sounds too ominous and naturalistic to stand for anything but just what it says. So . . . adults who prey on kids (?) Possibly? Maybe? I find the verse unsetting, regardless.

Hi, Scott

Good observations there, and you are right in saying that the verse is unsettling. I still find it puzzling though, as I fail to see how it fits in within the context of the song, which is about a mystical place like Dun Ringill, for example, where the presence of the gods can almost be felt, so much so that the hair on the back of the cat stands up. Maybe we can ask Ian about that the next time we meet him!

Jeff

[Bkasl]

This track and Dun Ringill is qued first when Stormwatch goes on, but two songs I have never seen live after 22 concerts

[notsoshaggy]

Oct 31, 2010 21:47:27 GMT -5 Nonfatman said:

Oct 30, 2010 10:50:11 GMT -5 notsoshaggy said:

Hi, Scott

Good observations there, and you are right in saying that the verse is unsettling. I still find it puzzling though, as I fail to see how it fits in within the context of the song, which is about a mystical place like Dun Ringill, for example, where the presence of the gods can almost be felt, so much so that the hair on the back of the cat stands up. Maybe we can ask Ian about that the next time we meet him!

Jeff

Jeff-- you're right, I wasn't looking at its context within the song, which was kind of your point. And no, it doesn't really blend in with the Dun Ringill atmosphere that you mentioned. Ian . . . we need your help, brotha.

[Silkenmist]

Sept 10, 2010 14:56:59 GMT -5 Nonfatman said:

Here's a song that I didn't like much at first, but it has continually grown on me over the years, and now it's one of my favorites. A beautifully textured, atmospheric song with many layers to it, and I especially love the outro. The song sends shivers down my spine, and I think Ian's intention was for the song to have that effect on the listener, given the subject matter of the lyrics.



But one stanza has always puzzled me:

"And young children falter in their games
At the altar of life's hide-and-seek
Between tall pillars, where sunday-night killers
In grey raincoats peek"

What does this stanza mean within the context of the song?
Does anyone have any ideas about this?

Jeff

Hi Jeff:

This has been and always will be one of the songs that Ian has done that I will love forever. I loved it from the first time I heard it. I wish someone would teach me (step by step instructions) how to post a video from You Tube to here as Ian has done this live and I have it, but I am so not technical and need help on what to do to post it here. What a great song done live. As for his lyrics...I guess we will never know what he was thinking, but I love how he comes up with them.

Regards,

Silken...

[Dan]

Nov 3, 2010 7:37:29 GMT -5 Silkenmist said:

Sept 10, 2010 14:56:59 GMT -5 Nonfatman said:

Here's a song that I didn't like much at first, but it has continually grown on me over the years, and now it's one of my favorites. A beautifully textured, atmospheric song with many layers to it, and I especially love the outro. The song sends shivers down my spine, and I think Ian's intention was for the song to have that effect on the listener, given the subject matter of the lyrics.



But one stanza has always puzzled me:

"And young children falter in their games
At the altar of life's hide-and-seek
Between tall pillars, where sunday-night killers
In grey raincoats peek"

What does this stanza mean within the context of the song?
Does anyone have any ideas about this?

Jeff

Hi Jeff:

This has been and always will be one of the songs that Ian has done that I will love forever. I loved it from the first time I heard it. I wish someone would teach me (step by step instructions) how to post a video from You Tube to here as Ian has done this live and I have it, but I am so not technical and need help on what to do to post it here. What a great song done live. As for his lyrics...I guess we will never know what he was thinking, but I love how he comes up with them.

Regards,

Silken...

Pearl it is very simple to post YouTube videos here.
On the YouTube page , click on the the heading under the video that says, "share".
Right click that with your mouse and hit copy to save the link.

Then on our board ,there is a button on the Add Tags line that says Tube.
Click that and paste the saved YouTube link and insert it in between the two YouTube quotations.

Dan

[My God]

Old Ghosts is one of my all time favorites as well.









I'll be coming again like an old dog in pain.
Right through the eye of a hurricane.

[Deleted]

Good job pointing out the lyrics, notsoshaggy. Ian definitely has a tendency to add in bits of dark and sad sights whether in a humorous light or not (such as Cross-Eyed Mary or Aqualung itself).

[Stormmonkey]

Jeff,

Great song to discuss at this wintry time of the year.

I've been mulling over the section you quoted in the dirt cheap slow cooker/crockpot of my mind for a couple of weeks now...here are my musings...

"And young children falter in their games
At the altar of life's hide-and-seek
Between tall pillars, where sunday-night killers
In grey raincoats peek"

Clearly 'Old Ghosts' features the storm (hurricane) of the albums title. The lyrics of the song are suitably fitting for a stormy scene - they are like wind-blown ideas, like skittering leaves. Mostly nature and animals are themes - a snapshot image of a cemetery scene emerges from these gusts of thought. Key change too. Children playing, adults preying. A lot of cemeteries do have tall pillars and lots of different monuments. This would tie into the second verse...

'Misty colours unfold a backcloth cold - fine tapestry of silk
I draw around me like a cloak"

It is these lines that cement my thinking that the previous lines you quoted are set in a cemetery. This is surely a coffin scene in which the old ghost awakens in his booth (satin-box/whatever you wanna call it), draws his shroud around him and soundlessly glides a-drifting to the venue (the standing stones) to get his groove on. How does an old ghost sound-check though? That's the question! lol.

The use of the word 'soundlessly' reminds me of a great poem by Northern Irish poet Louis MacNiece - which bears no thematic relation to this song whatsoever - however, as I'm very fond of it I think I'll post that poem here anyway.

Snow by Louis Macniece (1935)

The room was suddenly rich and the great bay-window was
Spawning snow and pink roses against it
Soundlessly collateral and incompatible:
World is suddener than we fancy it.

World is crazier and more of it than we think,
Incorrigibly plural. I peel and portion
A tangerine and spit the pips and feel
The drunkenness of things being various.

And the fire flames with a bubbling sound for world
Is more spiteful and gay than one supposes–
On the tongue on the eyes on the ears in the palms of your hands–
There is more than glass between the snow and the huge roses.

I don't really have anything further to add about 'Old Ghosts'. It's a superb song - from one of my favourite Tull albums. Stormwatch is probably in my top 5. For me, there is a different high-energy and rawness to the writing and playing on that record - it has always appealed. I've said it before and I'll say it again - the album 'Stormwatch' defined a new genre for me - I like to think of it as Meteorological Rock.

I remember, quite a few years ago, jamming along to 'Old Ghosts' in a spooky old country house I lived in one time. Outside a serious storm was bursting from the heavens - rain smacking the hell out of the great bay windows! Thunder and lightening. It was afternoon. I won't forget that experience in a hurry let me tell ya!

I have a Tull trivia question for my fellow fans now... The main flute riff that Ian plays at the start of 'Old Ghosts' - at about 15.5 seconds into the song - there is another Tull song in which Ian plays exactly the same riff. Almost identical. In fact, if you were to mix-isolate this flute-riff from both songs, they would be practically interchangeable - maybe just a slight tempo adjustment would be required.

What is the song? The first person to name the song has my full permission to deposit at least £50 into my paypal account- although I would like to point out that this is NOT limited to £50 - I'll accept payments of up to £10,000,000. Not one penny more mind! Not a bad prize, eh? Can't say fairer than that!

Brian.

[Nonfatman]

Thanks for that lucid and insightful analysis, Brian, I never realized that Ian was painting a cemetery scene with those words, but I think you are definitely correct about that.

The song is an interesting one, but I have never been able to fully understand the lyrics, so that was very helpful and I think I will have a listen of that song today, paying close attention to the lyrics in light of your interpretation and also looking for that flute riff you are referring to!

Stormwatch is an album that I find continues to grow on me. I'm not sure if it will ever crack my Top 5 favorite list, but it is very close. But I think that in terms of sheer, melancholy beauty, it is Tull's finest.

I think our Look Into The Song subboard in the Parse the Word department is one that needs to be developed some more. We have discussed a number of songs there in great detail, and I would like to see more of that! So if anyone has a suggestion for a song that they would like to rip apart and put back together again, drop your suggestion into the Song Selection thread, which you can find by clicking on the Look Into The Song subboard!

Jeff

[Stormmonkey]

Nov 13, 2010 14:54:29 GMT -5 Nonfatman said:

Thanks for that lucid and insightful analysis, Brian, I never realized that Ian was painting a cemetery scene with those words, but I think you are definitely correct about that.

The song is an interesting one, but I have never been able to fully understand the lyrics, so that was very helpful and I think I will have a listen of that song today, paying close attention to the lyrics in light of your interpretation and also looking for that flute riff you are referring to!

Stormwatch is an album that I find continues to grow on me. I'm not sure if it will ever crack my Top 5 favorite list, but it is very close. But I think that in terms of sheer, melancholy beauty, it is Tull's finest.

I think our Look Into The Song subboard in the Analyze This department is one that needs to be developed some more. We have discussed a number of songs there in great detail, and I would like to see more of that! So if anyone has a suggestion for a song that they would like to rip apart and put back together again, drop your suggestion into the Song Selection thread, which you can find by clicking on the Look Into The Song subboard!

Jeff

Thanks Jeff. Always good to discuss favourite songs with a fellow fan. I enjoyed our 'Lost In Crowds' discussion a few years back. Just my musings, which may well be completely up the left.

I was thinking again about the young children faltering at their games at the alter of life's hide-and-seek. Why would they be faltering? It seems to make sense that the children would be playing in a cemetery. Not an easy place to play in of course. Lots of iron-wrought surrounds, marble surrounds, stone cherubims and the very spooky fact that they would be running around over graves. Hence the faltering as they play.

If this is the case, then it's interesting to describe a cemetery as the "altar of life's hide-and-seek". That line does puzzle me. Is there a double meaning here? - the children play hide-and-seek - or is it the dead who lie around who are playing the ultimate game of hide-and-seek? OK - I'll stop there - I'm getting crazy. I think one can go overboard trying to interpret lyrics sometimes. However, I have always been puzzled by that line.

Before I bought 'Stormwatch' I was given a copy on tape by a friend so I didn't have the lyrics. The line "glide a-drifting" I completely misheard. For some years I thought Ian was singing about a Griffin - the mythological gold-hunting creature with the body of a lion and head/wings of an eagle.. lol.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Griffin

'Old Ghosts', I suppose, is coming from the same place as 'Doctor to my Disease' - a spirited statement of the love of playing music and a strong defiance towards anything that might impede that.

The other song that features the identical flute riff I mentioned was recorded at some point in the last 5 years of the 70s.

Great story you told about the first time you heard "Broadsword and the Beast". It must have been amazing to get an advance promo copy before the release. Overall, I would tend to agree with you about that album. Of course, like any Tull album, there are some excellent songs/moments on it. However, it isn't one of my favourites. I can't exactly put my finger on it - I think perhaps it is a little over-produced and clinical. I think "A" is a much better album.

Brian.

[Nonfatman]

Hi, Brian,

I think your analysis (and that of SharkDan, as well) is spot on, the children are playing hide and seek in a cemetery, using the tombstones to hide, and the pillars could be those of mausoleums. And your idea about Ian's double meaning behind "hide and seek" is definitely correct, the game that the children are playing being compared to life's ultimate hide and seek, as you said.

You know, I just never realized that the setting of the song was a cemetery. (If I had, then maybe I wouldn't have found that stanza so puzzling.) I always thought the reference to "down to the stones where old ghosts play" referred to the sacred stone circles, like Dun Ringill, and that the ghosts were kind of like the whispering gods from that song. But I think that you and young Sharkey are right...it is a cemetery.

I still don't get the part about Sunday night killers in grey raincoats, peeking, though!

Jeff

[Stormmonkey]

I still reckon the venue is a stone circle. Not the stony ground of 'We Used To Know'. The Sunday night killers are puzzling indeed - then again, my local cemetery has been known to contain some freaks after dark.

Have you found the song with the identical flute riff? The riff appears, just once, in the last minute of the song. The songs do share some musical similarities to a certain extent.

Brian.

[Stormmonkey]

Old Ghosts stitched in time. That is the other song that features the same flute riff Ian plays 15.5 seconds into 'Old Ghosts'. 'A Stitch in Time' - at about 2.55 - same riff.

[Deleted]

Now I've got to go and check that out, I can't get the two squared in my head!