Capturing the truest emotion: behind writing 'Haunted'
Content note: this post discusses rape and a police investigation. Please take care while reading.
'Haunted' captures the devastation of a dead-end police investigation. Fewer than 3 in 100 rapes recorded by police in 2024 resulted in someone being charged that same year*, let alone convicted. When it’s his word against yours, the doubts slip through the cracks (or in my case, the big fat gaps).
Written about my experience of reporting to the police, 'Haunted' tells the story of the moment the lead officer called me to say they’d interviewed the suspect. He had a prepared statement, a solicitor, and his dad there throughout the process, and didn’t say much outside the statement: "consent was given". I got the call at 3:15pm on a day in December 2020, after finishing a day of work at the village primary school, about to walk home. It floored me.
I knew, going into the investigation process, “It was always his word against mine.” (I’ve written about the whole process of reporting here.) This knowledge didn't change the impact it had on me.
I wrote the song that month, then came back to it when I began my research a few months later, in 2021. I set out to understand whether channelling unexpressed anger into songwriting would enable some change in me. I chose to rework 'Haunted'. I’d first drafted it on acoustic as a sad, country-ish ballad, but I decided instead that it was actually all about the anger. I restructured and reharmonised it with trusted friend and co-writer Thiago Trosso, and soon recorded a demo with then-bandmate and producer, Conor Reilly. A higher key, more modulations, a monumental key change, marching drums, and a chorus of survivors’ voices: Haunted became a pained rock ballad. When I presented my research, I zoomed in on the catharsis of expressing the anger with lyrics like, “I think I’m angry man, I wanna scream it out”. However, with hindsight, I’ve come to realise the truest emotion in the song is actually the devastation.
Over the last five years I’ve reharmonised the song another handful of times. When recording at Grand Chapel Studios, I settled on open C tuning (CGCFGC), and trusted producer, Anneliese Shaw to grasp the heart of the song and run with it (which she absolutely delivered on). With live cello from Midori Jaeger (improvised and layered), drums from Emma Holbrook, and bass from Oscar Golding, the song is built around my original vocal-and-guitar scratch on my partner's Faith guitar, with new vocal over the top. If you listen carefully, you can hear both vocals. When performing the vocal for this track, I was in the enclosed vocal room, alone, with eyes closed and a cup of warm squash to hand. I knew it needed to be delicate and capture how the news that day in December 6 years ago had floored me.
Choosing this song as the first single from the album is about making space for the devastating impact that rape, and the dead-end investigations that can follow, can have on a victim. For listeners of Sara Bareilles, Tori Amos and Brandi Carlile. In the new year, I’ll follow it with the rage-led alt-rock banger, 'Prisoner', but for now, let’s sit with the pain of this one. I believe it’s where the anger finds its purpose.
If you’re thinking about reporting, I’ve written about my own experience of it, step by step, here: “It is about you, and only you, and therefore should be your decision.”
And if any of this brings something up for you, Rape Crisis runs a free 24/7 Rape & Sexual Abuse Support Line for anyone 16+ in England and Wales: 0808 500 2222, or online chat at 247sexualabusesupport.org.uk
*Source: Rape Crisis England & Wales, rapecrisis.org.uk/get-informed/statistics-sexual-violence
Artwork: photography by Aniella Weinberger. Photographed in Waresley Woods, February 2026.
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