Lyrically Speaking: How Ghost tackle Jack the Ripper in ‘Respite on the Spitalfields’
Looking at the entire Ghost discography, you might say that Impera was their most ambitious work yet. While the previous projects focussed on specific themes and concepts, the band’s fifth studio album arrived with the complex mission of tackling the rise and fall of empires, along with capitalism, politics, and the dark corners of world history.
In the moments building up to the release of Impera, the tension among Ghost fans was rife. Every album effectively signifies a new era, and it felt certain that this would be the best and biggest yet. As the brainchild and inventor of Ghost’s music and its accompanying lore, Swedish rock connoisseur Tobias Forge knows how to generate hype.
After picking up a copy of The Rule of Empires: Those Who Built Them, Those Who Endured Them, and Why They Always Fall, Forge’s new direction was clear. “I’m interested in history and culture,” he told Metal Hammer, “And how empires are built up and how and why they always fall apart. Right there and then, I knew that at some point, ‘I’m going to make an imperial record.'”
When it finally landed, one thing was sure: this masterpiece had layers upon layers of allegorical meaning. Of course, ‘Twenties’ was obvious in its thematic navigation of Trump’s America, but many accompanying tracks warranted repeated listens in order to fully understand and appreciate them. ‘Respite on the Spitalfields’, for instance, seems to point at one thing in particular while simultaneously drawing from various sources to craft the perfect depiction of 19th-century Victorian London.
As the title suggests, the song sets the scene in east London before you’ve even hit play. In those initial notes, however, the arrangements curate a similar tone and atmosphere Siouxsie and the Banshees master in ‘Night Shift’, a track written about the heinous crimes of the Yorkshire Ripper, Peter Sutcliffe. Those first few bars create a viscera akin to walking along a cobbled street down a dark alleyway as an overwhelming feeling of dread looms.
“We’re here in the after of a murderous crafter,” Forge sings, “the past is spun like a yarn and mangled / With flesh and blood and bones, I wonder / Did no one hear the distant thunder?” He likens the subject to an “autumnal reaper” – the rumours of murders connected to the Ripper intensified in the latter months of 1988 – as Forge eerily states, “He sliced and diced our dreams to pieces.”
In true Forge fashion, the entire narrative plays out considerably poetically. The melody is as endearing as the accompanying guitar arrangements, and the lyrics rely on macabre imagery to curate an intriguing yet disturbing version of events. “We will break away together,” Forge promises, “I’ll be the shadow / You’ll be the light / Nothing ever lasts forever / We will go softly / into the night.”
Naturally, the song delves into “dark shit”, as described by Forge, dealing with the onset of fear and paranoia caused by the Ripper’s concealed identity throughout the years. “He did the people of Spitalfields and that part of London an enormous disfavour because he was never caught,” Forge told Kerrang.
He added: “Which meant that even though he had technically stopped killing at some point, they were never sure that he was not going to do it again. So, for a long time after, there must have been fear, especially among women, that it could happen again because you don’t know where he is. You don’t know where he’s hiding. You don’t know what happened.”
Thematically, however, the song also explores a common thread found throughout Impera: the dismantling of empires. Much like the story that unfolded with the Ripper, the track generally tackles the idea of shattered dreams and the harshness of reality. It also offers a glimmer of hope during the bridge: “We’re leaving this city / So this is farewell / Goodbye, Seven Sisters / And Saint Jezebel / The moon in the gutter / Has a story to tell / One day he will come back / From the bowels of hell.”
Although the best part of the song arrives with the spine-tingling guitar solo at the end, the track, in its entirety, grapples with the darkness that pervades the world. The first part deals with the aftermath of bloodshed, while the latter part focuses on the hope that follows once we break free from the shackles of society. It also speaks to the power of recognising deception, as Forge claims that “we have to pretend we didn’t see what we saw” when it’s revealed that the worshipped figure turns out to be just “the Wizard of Oz”.
A caution against empires, historical insidiousness, and hopeful tendencies, ‘Respite on the Spitalfields’ is a fascinating take on Victorian-esque culture and society. Forge always takes it to the next level when writing about sinister concepts, but this song truly testifies to his talent as both a songwriter and innovator in pushing the boundaries of musical convention.
