Hear Gretchen Peters’ Haunting ‘Arguing With Ghosts’ [Exclusive Premiere]
Gretchen Peters' voice in "Arguing With Ghosts" will haunt you after it's over. The song is the lead track off her new album, Dancing With the Beast, and it's debuting exclusively on Taste of Country on Friday (April 13).
Co-written by Peters with "Strawberry Wine" writer Matraca Berg and Ben Glover, the stirring ballad took form when Berg began reflecting on how much her home city of Nashville has changed in her lifetime, saying: "I get lost in my hometown."
That became the song's opening line, and "Arguing With Ghosts" went even deeper as the writers discussed the feeling of becoming disoriented in a place that once felt familiar, much like looking in the mirror as you get older and not recognizing your own reflection.
"I think the woman in the song is coming to grips with everything in the past in her life and all those ghosts that are in the past, whether they're people that are gone or dreams that she had to abandon," Peters explains to Taste of Country. "The arguing part to me indicates that she's not going down without a fight. She's a fighter."
Peters has achieved a celebrated career in Nashville as a songwriter. She's responsible for Martina McBride's career-defining hit "Independence Day," as well as tracks for Faith Hill, George Strait, Bryan Adams and more. Many of her songs putting strong female characters in the lead. "Arguing With Ghosts" follows this trend beautifully, as we embark on the journey of a woman who has been withered by the years, looking back on her life and wondering where the time went.
"The years go by like days / Sometimes the days go by like years / And I don't know which one I hate the most," Peters sings.
"I admire characters that are heroic in a very quiet, kind of stoic way. They don't do overtly heroic things, but just the act of persisting in a life for a long time to me is very heroic and very human," Peters describes, connecting the woman in "Arguing With Ghosts" to the mothers in "Independence Day" and her song "Five Minutes."
"They're persisting and in their persistence there's a heroism that may be quiet and easily overlooked. I find it really inspiring," she admits. Peters' Dancing With the Beast will be available on May 18.
Listen to Gretchen Peters' "Arguing With Ghosts"
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