Johnny Depp Records Haunted Duet for Shane MacGowan Tribute Album
Johnny Depp and Imelda May have recorded a duet of “Haunted” for the upcoming tribute album 20th Century Paddy – The Songs of Shane MacGowan. The track arrives with a clear lineage: a song first written for the Sid and Nancy soundtrack, then reshaped by Sinéad O’Connor’s 1995 duet into a ballad.
May said it was “an honour to pay tribute to my beloved friends Shane MacGowan and Sinéad O’Connor soon after losing both precious souls in such a short space of time by singing Shane’s beautiful song Haunted’on this special album with my dear and incredibly talented friend Johnny Depp.” Depp, the Hollywood Vampires guitarist and vocalist, said the recording landed at the right point for both of them.
Johnny Depp and Imelda May
“We recorded this duet before we knew of this tribute album as we were (and often are) overcome by the absolute brilliance of Shane’s writing,” May said. That detail makes the project feel less like a commissioned duet and more like a creative pull that happened to line up with the tribute release.
Depp was equally direct about May’s role in the session. “There are people you meet in life who carry something timeless in them — a kind of knowing. Imelda is one of those people. Making music with her has been one of my greatest joys,” he said.
Haunted and 1995
“Collaborating on Haunted felt like more than just recording a song — it felt like honouring Shane and Sinéad, and everything they stood for,” Depp said. He added, “Shane was one of the greatest poets of his generation. And Sinéad, there was simply nobody like her.”
The 1995 version matters here because it gives this duet a specific inheritance, not just a title. O’Connor’s earlier take changed “Haunted” from soundtrack material into a ballad, and this new recording places Depp and May inside that same song history rather than outside it.
20th Century Paddy album
The upcoming 20th Century Paddy – The Songs of Shane MacGowan now has a single that does more than fill out a tracklist. It links Depp’s name to a tribute project built around MacGowan’s writing, with May positioning the recording as a direct salute to both MacGowan and O’Connor.
That makes “Haunted” the kind of tribute cut that can carry the album’s identity, not just decorate it. Depp’s final line says why: “This song found us both, I think, at exactly the right moment.”
