How to Write Hauntology Songs

You want a song that feels like finding your childhood bedroom in a different decade. You want the kind of track that makes people stare at the microwave and remember a TV advert they never watched. Hauntology music operates in that sticky space where nostalgia eats the future and leaves a ghost. This guide gives you everything you need to write, arrange, and produce hauntology songs that actually sound like memories, not cosplay.

Everything here is made for artists who want to make eerie, emotionally specific songs without reading five academic papers first. We will define hauntology, translate theoretical jargon into real life examples, give concrete chord and production recipes, walk you through lyrical prompts, cover ethical sampling and clearance, and give practical exercises you can finish in an hour. If you like thrift store audio, burned out synths, and the feeling of a future that never showed up, you are home.

What Is Hauntology

Hauntology is a weird word that sounds like it belongs in a funeral home brochure. It was coined by the philosopher Jacques Derrida to describe how lost cultural futures haunt the present. In music hauntology means making sounds that feel like a memory that forgot it was memory. The tone is nostalgic but not simply pretty. It is haunted nostalgia. Think attic recordings, public information broadcasts from the seventies, library music that smells like orange peel and asbestos, and synth tones that wobble like they used to be plugged in.

Real life example: you find a cassette labeled 1993 in a charity shop. It contains an educational program for children about washing your hands. You speed it up, pitch it down, add vinyl crackle and suddenly you have a chorus. That is hauntology in a single thrift store trip.

Why people respond to hauntology

Memory is political. Memory implies a lost choice. Hauntology taps into that feeling. When listeners hear it they experience nostalgia and disquiet at the same time. That emotional dissonance is a powerful songwriting resource. Use it to make songs that are melancholic, uncanny, and strangely comforting.

Hauntology Artists and Sound References

If you need names to point at while you make a playlist here are standard references and what they bring to the table.

• The Caretaker - creates music that sounds like memory degeneration using loops and heavy processing. Perfect example of memory as erosion.
• Burial - uses vinyl crackle, submerged vocals, and urban atmospheres to make memories of a city that is both familiar and sterile.
• Boards of Canada - warm synths, tape warble, and childhood media references. They often sound like your family car radio at dusk.
• Broadcast - eerie vocals and library music textures. Great for vocal styles that sound like someone whispering across a hallway.
• Ghost Box label - a micro label aesthetic that mixes public service broadcast sounds with pastoral unease.

When you listen to these artists listen for texture first then melody. The mood shows up in the noise. The voice is often treated like an object rather than a human. That is a clue to the aesthetic.

Core Themes to Write About

Hauntology lyrics are less about storytelling in a conventional arc and more about mood, fragment, and suggestion. The goal is to point at memory rather than reconstruct it.

Lost futures

Write about things that were supposed to happen but did not. A mall that never reopened. An off ramp that was never built. Use specific images so the listener can imagine the missed future. Example line: The neon sign never learned my name but it flickers like it remembers me.

Everyday objects as ghosts

Objects carry memory. The kettle, a child's raincoat, a cracked teacup. Make the object do something a person would do. The plant that leans toward a window becomes a witness to absence.

Broadcast memory and public information

Public service announcements, school kids shows, adverts for things that were never useful. These are the raw materials. Use their phrasing and cadence. Even small misquotations create a ghostly effect.

Time loops and repetition

Repetition is a hauntology tool. It feels like a stuck record but with meaning. A line that repeats with tiny changes implies memory wearing away. Try repeating a chorus line but remove one word each time.

Words and Lyrics That Sound Like Memory

Hauntology lyrics are fragmentary, slightly off, and full of ordinary details. Avoid sweeping statements. Offer crumbs. Be specific. Use voice like a tape recorder that degraded a little every pass.

Lyric prompts you can use right now

• Write a chorus out of a public information phrase like Please keep your distance and then make it personal.
• Describe a place in nine words or less using at least one object.
• Write three lines where each line mentions the same object in a different verb.
• Write a verse that contains a time stamp and a tiny action. Example: Tuesday, nine PM, I fold your sweater into a square.

Real life scenario: You are doing dishes at midnight and you hear a microwave beep. You write the chorus like you are the microwave. That is hauntological perspective taking and it works.

Prosody and delivery

Prosody is how words sit on beats and notes. In hauntology you often want off beat vocal placement. Let the vowel hang in the reverb. Speak low syllables on long notes. Sometimes treat sung words like spoken phrases with little melody. This creates the dislocated voice that represents memory not present tense emotion.

Harmony and Melody: How to Sound Like a Memory

Harmony in hauntology is less about progress and more about stasis with small fractures. Use simple palettes and introduce one strange chord to jolt the ear.

Chord choices that work

• Minor triads with major fourth chords. For example in C minor try F major over C minor bass. This creates a sense of wrong but familiar.
• Parallel major and minor movement. Move between C major and C minor to create sunlight that is suspicious.
• Drones and pedal points. Hold an open fifth under shifting upper chords for a funerary continuity.
• Add9 and sus2 or sus4 chords. These create suspended memory. Example progression: Em9 to Dsus2 to Cadd9 then back to Em9.
• Bounded bass lines that descend chromatically a step at a time. That small decay is very hauntological.

Sample progression you can try: Amadd9 // Fmaj7 // Em9 // Amadd9. Loop this at a slow tempo and sing small fragments over it.

Melodic tips

Keep melodies narrow. Use small intervals. Make the chorus less about a big belt and more about a sigh. When you do use a leap, let it sound like a memory surfacing then immediately recede. Use repeated motifs. Repetition equals recall.

Rhythm and Tempo

Tempo often sits in mellow ranges. Too fast and the nostalgia becomes kitsch. Too mechanically slow and it becomes boring.

• Try tempos between 60 and 90 BPM for ballad like hauntology.
• Use lightly shuffled swing to create a human looseness.
• Drop percussion out often. Silence is a tool. A beat that returns after a long gap feels like a memory popping back into focus.

Sound Design and Production Tricks

This is where hauntology lives. Texture and processing are your main instruments. Below are production techniques explained with what they do and how to use them in a project.

Tape saturation and tape warble

Tape saturation means adding the harmonic color and compression you get from analog tape recording. Tape warble is the slight pitch wobble tape machines produce. Both make sound imperfect and human. Emulate tape with plugins or by bouncing audio to a cheap tape machine. If you do not own a tape machine use plugins that emulate tape hiss, wow and flutter, and saturation. The result is warmth and instability.

Vinyl crackle and surface noise

Adding vinyl noise makes a track sound older. Use it sparingly so it reads as atmosphere rather than gimmick. Real life tactic: record a clear vinyl loop from a thrift store record you own. Fade it under the intro and then bring it back in the chorus.

Reverb types and placement

Long plate or hall reverb can wash vocals into the past. Convolution reverb using impulse responses from old rooms or radios creates believable rooms. Use reverb sends rather than heavy direct reverb. Keep critical lyrics dryer so the listener hears the words. Let background vocals and pads drown in space.

Filtering and EQ

Low pass filters that roll off high frequencies simulate old radios and cassette players. High pass a bit on subs to keep clarity but then cut a little midrange to make things sound distant. Automate filters so the voice gets punched through at one line then flows back into haze.

Pitch shifting and detuning

Small amounts of pitch shifting can make a vocal spectral. Try pitch down by a semitone and blend it low under the main vocal. Or pitch up a doubled line a few cents for that uncanny sibling effect. Detune synths by a few cents and widen with chorus to create out of tune memory chords.

Granular processing and stutters

Granular synthesis chops sound into tiny pieces and recombines them. Use it to make a vocal sound like it is melting into other audio. Also use momentary stutter edits to make words feel like a skipping record.

Sampling: Finding and Using Sounds Ethically

Sampling is core to hauntology. The aesthetic grew from reusing found audio. But sampling is legally and ethically tricky. Here is how to make it work without getting sued or being a jerk.

Options for source material

• Public domain archives. Old radio, public information, and government recordings can be public domain. Check the source first. National archives and library websites are a gold mine.
• Royalty free libraries. There are specific libraries that sell period style samples. Pay once and sleep better at night.
• Create your own. Record your grandma reading an instruction leaflet. Record the hold music at your dentist. Record the PA at an old train station. Found sound worked for artists because it was personal and legal.
• Sample and clear. If you love a sample that is copyrighted you can clear it through a lawyer or the publisher. This costs money but sometimes it is worth it for a key hook.

Processing samples to make them inhabit your world

Warping pitch, applying tape warble, adding EQ, and cutting up to make loops are standard techniques. Reverse a voice and low pass it. Use a convolution reverb with an impulse response from an old radio cabinet. If you recreate a vintage jingle using modern performance you avoid legal issues and get 90 percent of the vibe.

Arrangement Strategies

Hauntology songs often avoid classic verse chorus verse structures. They can be cyclical or cinematic. Arrange your song to feel like a memory that revisits the same place with small changes each time.

Blueprint A , The Slow Unfold

• Intro with field recording or crackle
• Sparse verse with a simple drone
• Instrumental bridge with processed sample
• Chorus that repeats a short phrase with an added harmony
• Final fade with the main motif reversed or buried

Blueprint B , The Loop Spiral

• Short looped motif that repeats
• Add layers every 16 bars to escalate tension
• Remove a layer at the song midpoint for a feeling of loss
• Return the motif with an altered pitch and extra noise

Keep transitions soft and avoid typical EDM style drops. The emotional effect comes from subtle changes and the listener noticing them like a hair on a sweater they did not see before.

Mixing and Mastering for the Haunted Sound

Mixing in hauntology is about giving depth and character not about making everything loud. Mastering should preserve transients and dynamic nuance so the space stays believable.

• Use parallel compression on drums to keep thump but preserve haze.
• Keep vocal main takes clearer and push background processed takes into reverb. This keeps clarity and atmosphere in balance.
• Use mid side processing to center the vocal and widen pads. But do not over widen. Too wide and the song loses intimacy.
• Apply soft clipping instead of hard limiting on master bus. You will preserve warmth without crushing the dynamics.

Ten Exercises to Write a Hauntology Song

1. Thrift tape exercise. Buy or find an old cassette or recording. Sample one sentence. Make it the chorus line or repeat it under a key phrase. Total time 60 minutes.
2. Object personification. Pick a household object. Write five lines where that object confesses one memory. Make two lines nonsensical. Ten minutes.
3. Broadcast flip. Take a public information phrase like Keep your hands clean and turn it into a personal statement. Use it as a hook. Fifteen minutes.
4. Tape warp melody. Record yourself humming a melody. Run it through a tape emulation plugin and resing over the processed version. Twenty minutes.
5. Drone bed. Build a two chord drone under a single lyrical phrase and sing the phrase with different prosody each loop. Thirty minutes.
6. Reverse reveal. Write a four bar loop then reverse it and see lyrical ideas that come from the reversed texture. Five minutes.
7. Field recording collage. Record five ambient sounds from your day. Layer them into a 90 second piece and write one line that fits over the collage. Forty five minutes.
8. Memory ladder. Start with one concrete image. In each subsequent line add an action, a time, and a sound. Keep total lines to four. Ten minutes.
9. Pitch shadow. Duplicate your vocal, pitch the duplicate down a small interval and treat it as a ghost voice. Write a call and response with the ghost. Twenty minutes.
10. Public domain jingle. Find a public domain jingle or song. Reharmonize it into minor and write a verse that contradicts the original message. One hour.

Example Hauntology Song Blueprint You Can Steal

Title idea: The Waiter Never Wrote Back

Tempo: 72 BPM

Chord palette: Amadd9 // Em9 // Fmaj7 // Amadd9

Textures: light vinyl crackle under 4 bar loop, pad with slow LFO detune, low pitch shifted vocal bed, distant field recording of a train station.

Arrangement

• Intro 0 00 to 0 20 vinyl crackle and train field recording
• Verse 0 20 to 1 00 sparse guitar arpeggio and dry vocal
• Instrumental 1 00 to 1 20 sample loop of public information phrase treated with reverb
• Chorus 1 20 to 1 50 repeat title line three times with added harmony on the last repeat
• Bridge 1 50 to 2 20 pitch down vocal drone and removed percussion
• Final chorus 2 20 to 2 50 chorus returns with two new lines and a subtle reversed sample under second half
• Outro 2 50 to 3 20 fade with reversed train recording and the main motif looped and slowed

Lyric snippet

Verse: The ticket booth hummed your name in static. I folded the map into the shape the city used to be.

Chorus: You left a message for the waiter never wrote back. You left a message for the waiter never wrote back. The kettle remembers my fingers three times over.

Notice how the chorus uses repetition with a slight surreal image. The kettle line is a small concrete detail that returns the song to domestic intimacy.

Common Mistakes and How To Fix Them

• Too much obvious nostalgia. Symptoms: lyrics full of brand names or direct references. Fix by using small objects and odd verbs rather than famous things.
• Over processed vocals that kill emotion. Symptoms: vocals unreadable because of reverb and effects. Fix by blending a dry close take with a processed take and automate balance.
• Samples that dominate the song. Symptoms: the sample becomes the song and restricts writing. Fix by making samples texture not message. Treat them as background furniture.
• Forcing a story. Symptoms: verses that try to explain the chorus. Fix by letting the chorus be a repeating odor and let verses be rooms you pass through.
• Mixing that removes intimacy. Symptoms: everything wide and crushed. Fix by centering the lead vocal and preserving dynamics. Less loudness equals more nuance.

Gear and Plugin Suggestions with Explanations

Cheap tools can make great hauntology. You do not need a studio full of vintage gear. Below are accessible options explained in plain English.

• MIDI controller. A keyboard that sends MIDI which means Musical Instrument Digital Interface. It lets you play virtual synths and manipulate note data. Great for trying weird detuned pads fast.
• DAW. A Digital Audio Workstation is software you use to record and arrange music. Examples include Ableton Live, Logic Pro, and Reaper. Pick one and learn its basics. You will spend less time fighting your tools and more time making ghosts.
• Tape emulation plugins. These simulate tape saturation and warble. Use them to warm synths and create instability. They are cheaper than a real tape machine and do the job well.
• Convolution reverb. A plugin that uses impulse responses which are recordings of real rooms or equipment. Use impulse responses from radios or old halls to make believable spaces.
• Granular plugin. Allows you to chop audio into tiny grains and reassemble it into spectral textures. Use it on vocals to make ghost layers.
• Field recorder. A portable device for recording ambiences. Often cheaper than studio mics and priceless for unique textures. Record a bus stop, a dishwasher, or an empty arcade.

How To Perform Hauntology Live

Live performance is an exercise in translating studio atmosphere into a room. Do not try to “exactly reproduce” every texture. Set up a core band and choose three key samples or processed elements to trigger. Use visual cues like old video loops, VHS footage, or flickering slides to support the mood. Keep dynamics and the ability to drop to almost nothing. Silence on stage can be terrifying in a good way.

Marketing Your Hauntology Song Without Selling Out Your Soul

Hauntology fans love mood and context. Packaging matters. Use artwork that looks like a found photograph. Tag your release with phrases such as library music or memory pop so algorithms learn your vibe. Pitch to playlists for ambient nostalgia, cinematic, and leftfield electronic. Play a few short live sets at coffee houses or art spaces that let you use visuals. People who like hauntology often care about packaging and story. Give them an image they want to haunt.

FAQ

What does hauntology mean in simple words

Hauntology means things from the past or the future that never arrived coming back as memories. In music it is the use of sounds and textures that feel like memory. It makes the listener feel both comfort and unease at the same time.

Do I need vintage gear to make hauntology songs

No. You can get the vibe with modern plugins, field recordings, and tasteful processing. Vintage gear has character but plugins emulate those flaws very well. The creative choices matter far more than the price of the equipment.

Is sampling old radio material legal

Sometimes. Public domain audio is free to use. Copyrighted recordings need clearance. You can recreate a period style to avoid legal risk. When in doubt contact the rights holder or use royalty free libraries. Ethics matter too. If a sample is personal or private get consent from the original speaker.

How do I balance clarity with atmosphere

Use a dry vocal take as the core so the listener can hear the words. Add processed doubles and reverb as textures. Automate the balance so important phrases poke through the haze. Think of clarity and atmosphere as a duet rather than rivals.

What vocal style works best for hauntology

Soft, intimate, and a little detached. Spoken word and half sung lines work well because they sound like a memory being remembered. Double and process one take to create ghost voices. Keep dynamic range and avoid perfect pitch corrections which remove human wobble.

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