There’s a deeply personal story behind Ghosts of our Former Selves’ latest album ‘Golden’. Frontman Theo Brehony’s experience entering into and now nurturing into fatherhood was a defining factor in the album’s release and meaning, even if it might not have had a rather direct impact into the actual song writing itself. Coming from a raw place, the song was written with his song on the way, but was only really considered as a standalone piece after his birth.
Released as part of a 2021, record, ‘Golden’ finds itself the star and singular anchoring moment across this record, a song that’s given three distinct shots at life through an acoustic version and a remix alongside the original. There’s a grandiosity to the record, a certain sense of scale and size that it has due to its immense importance both personally and also for the undying and emotionally resonant message that it carries. That gospel energy comes to a remarkable crescendo in the songs latter half, but the acoustic driven build up serves as the perfect set up as well.
During a particularly raw moment in his life, Theo had written down some lyrics about his upbringing in a Greek community as a single child to a single mother, and the fact that he was considered to be her ‘golden boy’. Later, and in a heated argument with an old flame, Theo was told he had ‘golden boy mentality’ and that he couldn’t be a ‘golden man’. That latter sentence, that seeming contradiction, is what finds itself in the chorus line and the defining moment of ‘Golden’. But there’s a nurturing line to it all, ‘just be golden when you can’. It all hits like a poignant and purposeful reminder about not just who we should be, but what our parents themselves might have told us and instilled us with. Teary eyed for sure.