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Ghost of a Dog

album by Edie Brickell & New Bohemians

Manuscripts, fine bindings, an engraving plate and preserved performance ephemera
Arts and lettersInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJun 20, 2026
Entity authorityQ5557297 ↗
Source-derived summary

Ghost of a Dog is the second album by American alternative rock band Edie Brickell & New Bohemians, released in 1990.

In the printed lyrics that accompany the album, each song has a word with a single letter missing. In order, they spell out "ghost of a dog."

The album sold about 500,000 copies. After a tour in support of the album, the band decided to take an indefinite hiatus.

Production

The album was produced by Tony Berg. Unlike on the debut, where many tracks used session musicians, the New Bohemians play throughout Ghost of a Dog.

Critical reception

The Los Angeles Times thought that "Brickell and the Bohemians band do a reasonable job of recycling the soothing elements of ‘60s pop-folk, but her own views are so childlike and her images so often pointless that it’s hard to work up any feeling for them." Entertainment Weekly wrote: "Brickell can write lyrically about the difference between the desire for romantic independence and desire itself. But just when she starts to show some grit, she’ll drift toward smiley-faced ditties like 'Oak Cliff Bra' — songs so cloying they make you wonder if Brickell underwent a lobotomy between tracks." Andrew Collins of NME wrote, "Twee? A little, but it's laced with a Lynchian fascination with death which adds a nice depth."

The New York Times declared that none of the songs recaptured the charm of the first album's "What I Am". The Chicago Tribune wrote that Brickell's "ability to write wisely about the bad stuff of romance with a marked lack of anger toward the opposite sex makes her unique and-for postmodern romantics-endearing."

Track listing

Personnel

The New Bohemians

Edie Brickell – vocals, acoustic guitar

Kenny Withrow – acoustic guitar, electric guitar, dobro, slide guitar, backing vocals

Wes Burt-Martin – acoustic guitar, electric guitar, backing vocals, string arrangements (9)

Brad Houser – bass

Matt Chamberlain – drums

John Bush – percussion

Additional musicians

Tony Berg – keyboards, guitars, string arrangements (9)

Paul Fox – keyboards

Danny Timms – acoustic piano (1)

Jo-El Sonnier – accordion (3)

Paul "Wix" Wickens – keyboards (8)

David Mansfield – acoustic guitar (8)

Larry Corbett – cello (9)

Novi Novog – viola (9)

Sid Page – violin (9)

John Lydon – backing vocals (8)

Production

Tony Berg – producer, mixing (5, 14)

Chris Lord-Alge – recording

Susan Rogers – recording, mixing (7, 12)

David Thoener – recording

Ken Jordan – additional recording

Greg Goldman – assistant engineer

Mike Reiter – assistant engineer

Bob Clearmountain – mixing (1–4, 6, 8–11, 13)

George Marino – mastering

Robin Sloane – creative director

Lyn Bradley – design, layout

Janet Wolsborn – design, layout

Ann Cutting – photographic tinting

Studios

Recorded at Bearsville Studios (Bearsville, New York); The Village Recorder and Zeitgeist Studios (Los Angeles, California).

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “Ghost of a Dog” as album by Edie Brickell & New Bohemians. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Ghost, album and Edie.

Editorial reviewBest approached as a cultural-object dossier: authorship and date matter, but circulation and reception often explain the wider significance. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1990—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1990. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Ghost, album and Edie providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Ghost of a Dog”, the useful work is to connect “album by Edie Brickell & New Bohemians” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

Reception evidence should be dated and situated: later canonical status may differ sharply from the work’s initial circulation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 20, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5557297. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1990.

Critical limits

Rights, attribution and provenance may remain disputed even when a general reference summary presents a stable account. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

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Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Ghost of a Dog”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Ghost of a Dog primary sources, Ghost of a Dog archive and Ghost research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Ghost of a Dog” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.