Your Ghost by Dave Hause featuring Amythyst Kiah and Kam Franklin (2020)

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Your Ghost Cover

A singer-songwriter Dave Hause was born on March 12, 1978 who performs both solo and with his band The Mermaid. [1]

Your Ghost is a song written in the wake of George Floyd’s death. The song is in ways, a spiritual successor to the singer’s 2017 “Season’s Greetings from Ferguson.” Your Ghost, reflected Hause’s anger and exhaustion at the injustice, in the refrain “How long will there be this song of ‘I can’t breathe’?

The track cut midway through a lyric, the singer says about the new track:

"It’s a privilege to write songs for a living, and I write them to try to make some sense of the chaotic world in which we live. I watched the footage of George Floyd’s murder from the safety of my home, and I experienced the outrage, despair, and grief that so many of us shared. My brother Tim and I got to work on this song that week as a way to try to process what we had all collectively witnessed. We tried and initially failed to get the right tone, but as we worked at it, we learned about our blind spots on these issues and how to wrestle with them. But that nagging question again… am I just another white guy singing about someone else’s experience? Yes, I am. But could this song make a difference? Even a small one?" [2]

Songwriter Dave Hause teams with Amythyst Kiah and Kam Franklin for the new protest song Your Ghost

Key Lyrics

Wouldn't it be convenient if he just rested in peace?

I saw his cousin crying wondering how to call the cops on the police

With a bootprint on your shoulder, face down on the street

Another precinct that's been rotted out

Another song of "I can't breathe"

"I can't breathe"

He said "I can't breathe"

Oh what a privilege to hide behind a screen

Like biteless barking dogs we yelp on an ever-tightening leash

Another public execution under a greedy would be king

Another desperate bloody anthem a crying family has to sing

"I can't breathe"

He said "I can't breathe"

I hope your ghost haunts all of our dreams

I hope you float like smoke over the blood machine

I hope you soak into the wick like kerosene

I hope it burns clean

How long will there be this song of "I can't breathe"? [3]

Black Empowerment

Dave Hause along with his brother and collaborator knew that the song needed to get just right in the wake of the killing of George Floyd. Two white guys writing about injustice and police brutality, they sent their song to every black person to get their feedback, from fellow artists to a professor of anthropology at Temple University.

“I felt like if we didn’t do that, it would just be gross,” Hause says. “I learned a ton from the experience.”

All three, Hause, Kiah, and Franklin are repeating a chorus of “I can’t breathe.” “Oh what a privilege to pretend that we can’t see,” Hause sings, hoping that the ghosts of those killed by police “haunt all of our dreams.” “This song really gets to the heart and soul of the devastation that police brutality causes, and Dave did a remarkable job at capturing that,” Kiah says. “Violence by police toward unarmed people, and in many cases unarmed people of color, who should be treated as innocent until proven guilty, breaks trust between the community and the people in uniform that are meant to serve and protect.” “Music is my strongest form of protest right now,” Franklin says. “The only way that the stories and atrocities against people like George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Elijah McClain, or Tamir Rice won’t be forgotten is by telling them over and over again.” [4]

References

  1. Dave Hause. Wikipedia. Retrieved January 18, 2021
  2. Jay, Melannie. Dave Hause’s “Your Ghost” shows the frustration of the never-ending fight. The Key. July 7, 2020. Retrieved January 18, 2021
  3. Your Ghost Dave Hause. Genius. Retrieved January 18, 2021
  4. Hudak, Joseph. Song You Need to Know: Dave Hause, ‘Your Ghost’. Rolling Stone. July 8, 2020. Retrieved January 18, 2021