Ghosts

"Ghosts" is the tenth song off of Mike Shinoda's debut solo album, Post Traumatic.

Background

Mike told Genius, "Writing this song felt like a delicate balancing act. One of the things that makes it work, to me, is the point of view–the idea that it is being told to me from someone else. In real life, that’s what I experienced: people telling me their ghost stories. Some believable, some not so much."

He added, ""Ghosts" is a metaphor for the unknown–things we can't see or touch, things that are a mystery. As I say in the first line, this is not about a literal "poltergeist.""

Music Video

On June 1st, Mike posted to his Instagram under the pseudonym "Boris", a sock puppet Mike made, claiming he was hacked and to "slide into his DMs" on Facebook Messenger. There, "Boris" stated he was making his own music video to be posted on Mike's account. He proceeded to send images and clips of the video and song to people. On June 8th, the song and video were released.

The music video starts with a clip of Mike saying "I had enough hard days. It's, like, if I wake and I feel good, I shouldn't feel guilty about having fun, you know?" The rest of the video consists of "Boris", "Miss Oatmeal", and various cutouts attached to sticks lip syncing and dancing to the song. Mike's wife Anna controlled the ghosts that appear in the video. At the end, one of the puppets from the video for "Barack Your World" makes a cameo.

Mike tweeted, "I made a sock puppet video because it took me months to feel like I deserved to have fun. So I celebrated it, and I have no regrets. I wanted to make you guys smile. You deserve to smile. You deserve to have fun. You deserve to live. THINK before you click." The last portion of the tweet references negative drama and hostility that sometimes appears in the press and on social media.

Mike said he knew fans would like the idea of the video, explaining, "When I did it, I thought, our fans are the type of fans that are generally that like, they'll do some version of the flash mob or they'll bring stuff to the show or they'll do things at the show. And I kind of had the sense that there would be some element of that going on. So that's why very early on when we were putting the video together, I called our partners who I do the merchandise with and I said, "We need to make socks. We need to make sock puppets, I'm sure people will make their own, but I would love to have some at the table in the venue." And they're on the website and stuff like that too. But yeah, people can also make their own and they bring them in. I even had one show, this woman came in with a full size Boris costume, she was Boris, it was really funny."

In 2020 when asked about how he came up with ideas for music videos, Mike said, "It depends on the video. "Ghosts," that video just popped into my head. I have no idea why, I just wanted to have fun. Part of having good self care is being aware of your state of mind and being like, "today I want to do a very chill track, I don't want to do something really aggressive and stressful, I don't want it to be super stressful today, I've got a really chill energy today." And that's what we did. Hopefully I am doing it right."

Versions

Note: Only the date of the very first release of each version is listed.

Title	Album	Length	Recorded	Released	Notes
Ghosts	Ghosts Post Traumatic	2:54	2017-2018	June 8, 2018
Ghosts	Post Traumatic - Instrumentals	2:54	2017-2018		Official instrumental version.

Live

"Ghosts" was debuted live at Mike's performance at Amoeba Records. For a few select shows, "Ghosts" was used to close the main set.

Personnel

• Written and produced by Mike Shinoda
• Vocals by Mike Shinoda
• Mixed by Serban Ghenea
• Mastered by Michelle Mancini

Lyrics

She said this is not about a poltergeist
Not about a phantom that glows at night
But there're things we don't know and I
Don't have another choice but an open mind, oh
And I know what they'll say
I'm tryna make sense of what no one can explain
But I've been having dreams that after I'm awake
Play out in reality the very next day

So I play along
I nod my head when they say I'm wrong
But each night falls and the way I run
On the other side 'til the daylight comes
So I play along
I nod my head when they say I'm wrong
But each night falls and the way I run
On the other side 'til the daylight comes

And when the lights go down
I see things I can't explain calling out my name
The lights go down holding every memory close
Tonight is for our ghosts
Ghosts, ghosts
Tonight is for our ghosts

This is not about you and me
I can't bring back how it used to be
And I know what I do believe
But I've already seen what I couldn't see, oh

So I play along
I nod my head when they say I'm wrong
But each night falls and the way I run
On the other side 'til the daylight comes

And when the lights go down
I see things I can't explain calling out my name
The lights go down holding every memory close
Tonight is for our ghosts

And when the lights go down
Is there something in the air there but never there?
The lights go down holding every memory close
Tonight is for our ghosts
Ghosts, ghosts
Tonight is for our ghosts
Ghosts, ghosts
Tonight is for our ghosts

Gallery

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  Boris