Ghost Love Score

I think someone got it right a couple of pages back with "My theory is that this song is about how Tuomas loved Tarja. I think, although I may be totally wrong, that it is called GHOST Love Score because it is a romantic relationship that never happened."

Well, along the right lines, anyway.

Firstly, Ghost Love Score is quite good.

Secondly, in terms of an emotional journey, this is as close to perfect as any song will come (comparable to Beethoven's Fifth, perhaps?). It would have my vote for best song ever written.

As many have stated, it probably refers to a betrayal between lovers. I'm not buying the Christian thing, not for one second, I don't think it's about that at all.

However, I think it refers specifically to Tuomas and Tarja. How much love existed between them, I won't claim to know. It could have been pretty literal, it could have been greatly exaggerated for storytelling purposes within the song, it could have been meant in an entirely platonic way, etc...

But, since we've now heard Dark Passion Play, we not only know how deeply Tuomas was affected by all that transpired with Tarja's departure, but also that he wasn't above writing a few songs about it. Namely, Bye Bye Beautiful seems to be looking back at her, almost fondly at times, despairing that she 'chose the long road' and didn't heed earlier warnings. Master Passion Greed is an all-out attack on Tarja's husband, who the band saw as having a very bad influence on her and turning her against them (could Tuomas have been jealous? Maybe, but I personally don't think that was it). And then there's The Poet And The Pendulum, discussing Tuomas' devastation after firing her, his thoughts of ending it, and finally him dealing with it.

So given all that, we know he was quite keen on her. Again, not necessarily in a sexual way, could quite easily have been a love of her as a friend (being in a band is often likened to being married - such as in Spinal Tap - it is quite possible he loved her out of 'them being in it together').

Bye Bye Beautiful is particularly important to our understanding of this theory, especially the line 'did you ever read what I wrote you?' This seems to strongly imply that there were messages within Tuomas' lyrics about Tarja not straying too far, lest she should fall. Specifically, these warnings would have to have been located before Tarja's departure, and since pressure had been slowly building to that point, it seems that the strongest and most obvious messages would be contained within Once.

And indeed, closer inspection reveals several interesting lyrics that could be relevant; 'These lines the last endeavour to find the missing lifeline' seems to be a final plea for them to get back to the glory days when all the band got on well together. I doubt 'old loves, they die hard, old lies, they die harder' or 'you challenged the Gods and lost' actually refer to her, though I think they're quite interesting. As is the opening of Creek Mary's Blood: 'Soon I will be here no more!'

Another very important sign was the choice of cover song for the Once tour, Pink Floyd’s 1994 track from The Division Bell, High Hopes. The most prominent line of the entire song is Marco’s wonderful call of ‘The grass was greener…’ This relates to a time of happiness now passed and unlikely to return.

Anyway, this got me wondering, are there any messages within the great Ghost Love Score itself? Well, though I’d loved the song for years, I never really studied the lyrics in depth. As soon as I opened up the lyrics page, it hit me, and I couldn’t believe I’d not spotted it before. ‘We used to swim the same moonlight waters. Oceans away from the wakeful day.’

Anyone remember the cover of an album from 1998 called Oceanborn?

Sure, it’s partly metaphorical, saying they used to want the same thing with the band, be on the same page in mindsets and all that, but the imagery is strikingly similar, swimming in a moonlit ocean, a deep blue in colour (‘blue’ being a word that crops up several times during this song).

The chorus seems to be begging her to turn back on the path heading away from him, warning her that if she leaves he will never fully recover. As with everything Tuomas has done with Nightwish, it’s all about her - ‘my fall will be for you.’

Ok, so why am I so sure it’s about those two? The answer lies in the quiet bridge in the middle, with the line ‘still I write my songs, about that dream of mine.’ Sounds awfully like Tuomas to me. We know he sees himself as the poet, the dead boy, the ocean soul, who else would he be talking about? It sounds very much like the same tone of phrase with which he describes his own songwriting concerns – ‘every thought, the music I write, everything a wish for the night,’ ‘every single verse can only be composed of the greatest of pain,’ and ‘one last perfect verse is still the same old song.’

Bearing that in mind, I think it’s about Tuomas. And that leads me straight on to think it’s about Tuomas thinking about Tarja.

The final bridge, about redeeming into childhood, seems to be twofold, firstly about his mind finding shelter in childhood memories in times of hardship (as previously mentioned in Away – ‘away, away, to a home away from care, every dream’s just a journey away,’ and later in The Poet And The Pendulum and the song named within – ‘my home was there and then, those meadows of Heaven, adventure-filled days, one with every smiling face’). Secondly, it might refer to a clean slate, to starting afresh and ridding them of all the ‘baggage’ the two of them carry (as in the Buffy episode ‘Tabula Rasa,’ if anyone else remembers that).

And then comes the final acceptance, she’s gone, not coming back, and however high I may yet climb, to quote the song, now I’ll bleed forever. And this ending, particularly on the End Of An Era DVD which doesn’t fade out, is probably Nightwish at their loudest ever – driving guitars, steadily rolling double bass drums, fairly continuous open hi hats (again, on End Of An Era, this evolves into the closest I’ve ever seen to Jukka playing a drum solo), massive orchestral textures and fanfares, and a massive chanting choir, hurling those memorable four lines out at full blast.

And in spite of that, soaring above it all comes Tarja, with one line: ‘My fall will be for you,’ because, as ever, in Tuomas’ world, it’s still all about her.

I'd love to discuss this topic further with people - if you'd like to, drop me an email at Heavilyeverafter@hotmail.co.uk