I am in the middle of rebuilding my track Ghost into something new. I wanted a version that felt bigger, more cinematic, more alive, and something in me thought the hard part would be the music itself. It turns out the hardest part has been learning how to give honest feedback without slipping into old habits of softening myself to avoid discomfort. I did not expect that to be the main lesson, but here we are.
When I heard the first full draft of the new version, I felt something shift straight away. The song sounded good, but it did not feel right. The emotion that originally sat at the centre of the track in the demo was not landing the same way. In the past I would have ignored that feeling or convinced myself it was just me being picky. I would have sent a polite message full of disclaimers and maybes, hoping the other person would somehow read my mind and fix what I could not fully express.
That is what people pleasing looks like in music. It is not about being fake. It is about making yourself smaller so you do not risk being seen as difficult. I have done that for years. I used phrases like “something feels off” because I did not want to be too direct. It was a way of protecting other people’s feelings at the expense of my own work and my own instincts.
This time I stopped myself. I listened again, not as the person who wants to be liked, but as the artist responsible for the emotional truth of the song. Then I went deeper. I compared the demo I loved to the new version using analysis tools that helped me actually see what my ears were telling me. I looked at presence curves, emotional energy maps, and how the vocal was sitting in the mix. I used Cyanite to confirm that the emotional profile of the song had changed. The vocal space had moved backwards and the production elements were taking over the part of the track where the feeling used to live. I was not imagining it. The emotion really had shifted.
Once I had clarity, the fear fell away. I was able to say what needed to be said without over explaining or apologising. Not with technical jargon to sound clever, and not with vague feelings that left everything open to interpretation. Just simple, grounded truth. The vocal needs to lead again. The emotional space matters more than the extra polish. The song cannot lose the thing that makes it human.
That realisation comes from the artists I grew up loving. Celine Dion taught me that the emotional core of a song is not optional. It is the point. And I refuse to release a version of Ghost that sounds better on paper but feels worse in the body.
What surprised me most is that the moment I stopped trying to cushion the feedback, the collaboration actually got easier. There was no conflict. No defensiveness. Just clarity. It turns out the disaster I was afraid of was never real. The only thing getting in the way was my own belief that honesty equals discomfort. It does not. Honesty equals direction. And the song deserves direction.
So the new version of Ghost is still being shaped, and so am I. I am learning how to protect the work without apologising for it. I am learning that being clear is not the same thing as being unkind. And I am learning that if I do not speak up for the emotional truth of a song, no one else can do it for me.
GHOST2.0 comes out in January. It will be the most emotionally accurate version of the track I have ever released, not just because the music evolved, but because I did.
No more softening. No more avoiding clarity. No more “something feels off but I do not know why.”
I know exactly why now. And I say it.
Listen to the original released April 2025
