Ghostlight is basically an Alan Wake album. Here is why. (Contains spoilers for Alan Wake 2)

Foreword: For those who don’t know, Marko Saaresto and Sam Lake, the creative director of Remedy Games and one of three writers of Alan Wake and Alan Wake 2, are friends since they were teenagers. On the inner sleeves of the vinyl edition and in the small booklet of the CD edition of “Rebirth – Greatest Hits” Lake left a personal note, where he describes in detail the reasons for working together with Marko/Poets of the Fall to create a fantastic soundtrack for both games. Alan Wake was always marketed as a psychological thriller, but it certainly contains action-adventure and horror elements, especially in its second part. End of foreword.

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One and a half years before the release of Alan Wake 2 Poets of the Fall delivered their 9th studio album “Ghostlight”. As the third part of an album trilogy starting with Clearview (2016) and continuing with Ultraviolet (2018) it was supposed to work as a closing part and grand finale.

To add a small personal note: I love the album. In my opinion it contains the heart and soul of the band and combines all the great styles, sounds and qualities from the last two decades of the bands history. Their most ambitious project so far.

Alan Wake 2 was released in October 2023 and I was able to play and finish the story last December. The first part of Alan Wake always counted to my personal top 5 story-driven games of all time and I was blown away by the second part. It was nearly perfect.

Until I played Alan Wake 2 I have listened to Ghostlight around 8 times since the album release. I was very happy to listen to Heroes and Villains when the credits rolled up. I thought a lot about the happenings in the game afterwards and was very touched by the story and music. But then something happened …

It was another day, just as always. I’m commuting to work regularly, nearly half an hour to arrive at the workplace, another half an hour to return home, so I turned on Ghostlight again because I still was in that Alan Wake mood. And while listening to the same songs I already listened to multiple times, I started to pay a lot more attention to the lyrics (which I usually don’t do so actively and often, because English is my third language). I noticed a lot of … interesting metaphors and paraphrases, I don’t know how else to describe it, that fit with the plot elements and happenings from the games a lot – not just in one song, but in like every song of the album.

At first I thought this can’t be, but the more I dove into that theory the more I was convinced that this is too much of a coincidence. So I started to break down the lyrics of the songs in detail and thought of the release dates of both the game and the album in the meantime.
Alan Wake was released in 2010, part II in 2023. According to the wiki production started around August 2019, so it is possible that the story was written between 2019 and 2020.
Ghostlight technically had 4 years of production, but was probably written and produced within 1-2 years if the average release span of other music groups is considered.
So it is possible that the writing of Ghostlight started during the writing process of Alan Wake 2. Considering that Poets wrote another 4 songs (3 for Alan Wake 2) as Old Gods of Asgard, there is a high chance that the band was working closely together with Sam Lake.

I believe that Ghostlight was heavily inspired by Alan Wake/Alan Wake 2. My interpretation of the songs:

Track 1: Firedancer

(Crash the gates) Firedancer, flame of life
(What remains) Is a gamble, fall or fly
(Play your ace) And remember there’s a why
You should always question the answer

Fire is the light, Firedancer is a person holding the light. One of the only things helping Alan against the darkness is light.

The dark place Alan is captured at basically imitates the life as he remembers/portrays it. It’s a place that can change its shape or parts of it, if Alan wants to. Yet he should always question the answer, because else he’ll never be able to see the difference between what is "real" and what is not. The darkness/Scratch wants to use Alans “powers” as a writer for its own benefit, so it would try anything to make him lose himself and make a marionette out of him to escape into the real world again.

Track 2: Requiem For My Harlequin

Scratch is the Harlequin. In the infinite spiral that is Alan Wake 2 he gets defeated at the end until the whole story restarts again while everyone involved goes down deeper and deeper into the darkness. The refrain is a very good symbol for the continuous repetition of the story.

Track 3: Sounds of Yesterday

Alan reflects on his relationship with Alice.

Track 4: Revelations

Alans and Alices relationship damaged by his egoism and life style prior to the happenings of the first Alan Wake game.

Track 5: Heroes And Villains

The credits song of Alan Wake 2.

Track 6: Lust for Life

Alans motivation to get out of the darkness is his wife Alice who is waiting for him. He remembers what it was like when she was by his side. All he wants is get out of the dark place and be reunited with his wife again.

Track 7: Chasing Echoes

Again about Alans relationship with Alice. She is aware of the situation Alan is in and at the end of Alan Wake 2 we find out that she has been trying to reach out to Alan and help him.

Track 8: Weaver of Dreams

Floating over the sea
Metallic, filigreed
Horizon-free
And you, the storm of depths revealed
In a trance of steel
Tell me, how do you feel?

This could stand in relation to Alans last words in the first game. "It's not a lake, it's an ocean."
The dark place is endless and living there is often portrayed ingame as being in trance. Everything is wavy, an atmosphere as if everything is in motion and yet uncertain.

Track 9: Hello Cabaret

Alan, his relation to the darkness and the place he’s trapped in. Also as a standalone song a great sequel to Carnival of Rust.

Track 10: Beyond the Horizon

My favorite Poets song. Again, Alans situation at the dark place, the lyrics speak for themselves. But the last narrative part is especially intersting:

There are those who have become lost in the darkness
And found hope
Those who have surrendered to the fires of tribulation
And been reborn
Those who can illuminate the history of our time to come
We call them "ghostlights"

Nothing else fits so much with Alan Wake than this. Is maybe he a Ghostlight? Would this mean that Thomas Zane was a Ghostlight aswell?

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Thanks for reading. I hope it was interesting enough. What is your opinion on the album itself? Also, do you agree with me or not?