Wednesday, 31 October 2012

Whispers Follow Shantell

I've got Shantell by And Also The Trees playing as I write this.
Fifteen years ago - to the minute (it's just midnight) I was playing this song. October 1997. I had gone up into my room, and was about to write a ghost story for a competition. I was playing this song because I was going to use it as some kind of inspiration, about a the spirit of a girl possessing someone in the present (it wasn't a very original story). The spirit of the girl I was going to name Shantell, after the song. Then something struck me. I remembered reading an interview with the singer abot the song, where he said that what gave him the inspiration for the song was an odd experience he had had in a churchyard with a child's grave. He further went onto say that when they were recording the song they had all manner of problems; odd noises appearing on the tape, a whole verse or chorus disappearing... It occurred to me that the song itself might be haunted. Might I be asking for trouble calling the name of my ghost story after a possibly haunted song? As I thought this, and with the song playing in the background, all the books on the mantelpiece all fell off onto the floor.
I decided to call the story something else.