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Alana Springsteen teamed up with country megastar Chris Stapleton to release “ghost in my guitar,” a haunting anthem featured on the second installment of Springsteen's three-part debut album.
Stapleton is featured on guitar in Springsteen’s newest single. She said in an Instagram caption as she announced the duet earlier this week that “this song is about the things that haunt us… people who’s memory we can’t seem to shake no matter how hard we try. this duet needed to allude to the person who once was, which is why it couldn’t be a vocal. i had this insanely specific tone in my head for it and ended up seeing chris play his fender jazzmaster live for the first time right around the time i was cutting this song. i knew immediately that it had to be him. there was never a back up plan if he said no. thankfully chris is the kind of artist and musician who believes in the integrity of a song over anything else and i’m forever grateful that he liked this one enough to lend his iconic talent to it. …he asked what i had in mind and all i said was ‘think about what you would do with your voice and do it with your guitar instead’. he did.. and then some.”
Springsteen released the duet on Friday (July 14), which also marks the release of TWENTY SOMETHING: Figuring It Out. The project is a “daringly honest” one, per a press release issued Friday, serving as the second installment of the singer-songwriter’s forthcoming, three-part debut.
“One of the highlights of Figuring It Out is my collaboration with Chris Stapleton. This song is intentionally not a traditional vocal duet. I wanted it to be a duet between me and a lead guitar, so the guitar feature was crucial to this song. It represents the lingering presence of something (in my case, someone) who’s gone but also very much not. Every time I think I’ve written my way past the hurt, I’m reminded that I have a long way to go,” Springsteen said in the press release. “The guitar had to be just as emotionally charged as a vocal would have been to hint at those lingering feelings and memories that just won’t let me be, and Chris’ signature guitar tone was the only one I ever heard on it in my head. I’m so grateful to him for liking this song enough to lend his insane talent to it. I’m honored to have him on this project.”
“part two of my debut album is OUTTTT!! the songs on TWENTY SOMETHING: Figuring It Out are where some of the hardest work happened as this project came together. The late nights, ugly crying, therapy sessions in the form of writes, epiphanies. these stories represent some of the hardest lessons I’ve learned over the past few years. when u listen to these stories, ur experiencing real-time moments of realization and growth. years down the line i’ll look back at these songs as a reminder of how far I’ve come. my hope is that u do too 🫶🏼”
Find TWENTY SOMETHING: Figuring It Out on iHeartRadio here, and listen to “ghost in my guitar” below.