"Ghosts" is a song by English band
Japan. It was released in edited form in March 1982 as the third single from their 1981 album ''
Tin Drum''.
It reached number 5 in the
UK Singles Chart
The UK Singles Chart (currently titled Official Singles Chart, with the upper section more commonly known as the Official UK Top 40) is compiled by the Official Charts Company (OCC), on behalf of the British record industry, listing the top-s ...
in April. Although "Ghosts" was their biggest hit, this was not enough to stop the band splitting eight months later. Journalist Todd Hutlock called it "one of the most remarkable and unlikely entries in British chart history."
Composition
Writing credits for the song are attributed exclusively to
David Sylvian
David Sylvian (born David Alan Batt, 23 February 1958) is an English musician, singer and songwriter who came to prominence in the late 1970s as frontman and principal songwriter of the band Japan. The band's androgynous look and increasingly ...
, while instruments credits on the single sleeve are attributed to Sylvian,
Richard Barbieri
Richard Barbieri (born 30 November 1957) is an English musician, composer and sound designer. Originally a member of new wave band Japan (and their brief 1989–1991 reincarnation as Rain Tree Crow), more recently he is known as the keyboard ...
and
Steve Jansen, therefore excluding the fourth band member, bass guitarist
Mick Karn
Andonis Michaelides (Greek: Αντώνης Μιχαηλίδης; 24 July 1958 – 4 January 2011), better known as Mick Karn, was an English-Cypriot musician and songwriter who rose to fame as the bassist for the art rock/ new wave band Japan. H ...
. The lyrics describe deeply personal feelings. Sylvian has since said to ''
Mojo
Mojo may refer to:
* Mojo (African-American culture), a magical charm bag used in voodoo
Arts, entertainment and media Film and television
* MOJO HD, an American television network
* ''Mojo'' (play), by Jez Butterworth, made into a 1997 film
* ' ...
'' magazine that "Ghosts" pre-empted the band splitting up: "It was the only time I let something of a personal nature come through and that set me on a path in terms of where I wanted to proceed in going solo."
The song was arranged by Richard Barbieri and David Sylvian using a
minimalist
In visual arts, music and other media, minimalism is an art movement that began in post– World War II in Western art, most strongly with American visual arts in the 1960s and early 1970s. Prominent artists associated with minimalism include Do ...
approach and sounds influenced by
Karlheinz Stockhausen
Karlheinz Stockhausen (; 22 August 1928 – 5 December 2007) was a German composer, widely acknowledged by critics as one of the most important but also controversial composers of the 20th-century classical music, 20th and early 21st-century ...
. Barbieri created the odd, slightly discordant synth sound at the beginning of the song, using a
Roland System 700
The Roland System 700 was a professional monophonic modular synthesizer for electronic music manufactured by the Roland Corporation and released in 1976 and was followed by the Roland System-100M in 1978.
Modules
The System 700 range included ...
. Sylvian on a
Prophet-5 synthesizer and Barbieri on a
Oberheim OB-X
The Oberheim OB-X was the first of Oberheim's OB-series polyphonic analog subtractive synthesizers.
First commercially available in June 1979, the OB-X was introduced to compete with the Sequential Circuits Prophet-5, which had been success ...
then worked out chords. The
marimba
The marimba () is a musical instrument in the percussion family that consists of wooden bars that are struck by mallets. Below each bar is a resonator pipe that amplifies particular harmonics of its sound. Compared to the xylophone, the timbre ...
part of the song was arranged and played by
Steve Jansen.
Release
"Ghosts" was released as the third single from ''
Tin Drum'' in March 1982. It reached number 5 in the
UK Singles Chart
The UK Singles Chart (currently titled Official Singles Chart, with the upper section more commonly known as the Official UK Top 40) is compiled by the Official Charts Company (OCC), on behalf of the British record industry, listing the top-s ...
in April.
The group appeared on ''
Top of the Pops
''Top of the Pops'' (''TOTP'') is a British music chart television programme, made by the BBC and originally broadcast weekly between 1January 1964 and 30 July 2006. The programme was the world's longest-running weekly music show. For most o ...
'' on 18 March 1982 when the single was at number 42 in the charts. A week later it had shot up to number 16.
Reception
Bereft of drums, the minimalist track would not be described as a "commercially viable" single in most circumstances. However, Japan's popularity at the time, in addition to the early 1980s fashion for
new wave music
New wave is a loosely defined music genre that encompasses pop-oriented styles from the late 1970s and the 1980s. It was originally used as a catch-all for the various styles of music that emerged after punk rock, including punk itself. La ...
, allowed the single to become unexpectedly popular. Writing in ''
Smash Hits'',
Tim de Lisle
Timothy John March Phillipps de Lisle (born 25 June 1962) is a British writer and editor who is a feature writer for ''The Guardian'' and other publications, focusing on cricket and rock music.
Early life and education
De Lisle is the second son ...
described the single as "arguably the best thing they've ever done – slow, spare and mesmerising". ''
Record Mirror
''Record Mirror'' was a British weekly music newspaper between 1954 and 1991 for pop fans and record collectors. Launched two years after the '' NME'', it never attained the circulation of its rival. The first UK album chart was published in '' ...
'' made it Single of the Week, with reviewer Sunie Fletcher writing "the lush, utterly romantic singing is a treat, and, juxtaposed with the eerie, haunting sounds beneath it, forms the most stunningly original single you've heard for a very long time".
Versions
The 7" single was an edited version of the original album track. The single version is featured on a
bonus disc issued with the
box set release of the ''
Tin Drum'' album in 2003.
A live version of "Ghosts" is included on the band's live album ''
Oil on Canvas
Oil painting is the process of painting with pigments with a medium of drying oil as the binder. It has been the most common technique for artistic painting on wood panel or canvas for several centuries, spreading from Europe to the rest o ...
'' (recorded
in 1982). Japan also performed the song live on ''
The Old Grey Whistle Test
''The Old Grey Whistle Test'' (sometimes abbreviated to ''Whistle Test'' or ''OGWT'') is a British television music show. The show was devised by BBC producer Rowan Ayers, commissioned by David Attenborough and aired on BBC2 from 1971 to 1988. ...
'' on 4 March 1982. The band line-up included
Ryuichi Sakamoto
is a Japanese composer, pianist, singer, record producer and actor who has pursued a diverse range of styles as a solo artist and as a member of Yellow Magic Orchestra (YMO). With his bandmates Haruomi Hosono and Yukihiro Takahashi, Sakamoto i ...
and
David Rhodes and this new version of Ghosts, allegedly arranged by Sakamoto, remains unique to this performance.
In 2000 David Sylvian re-recorded "Ghosts" using the original Japan backing track and included it on his compilation albums ''
Everything and Nothing
''Everything and Nothing'' is a compilation album by David Sylvian. Released in October 2000, the album contains previously released and unreleased, re-recorded, and alternate versions of tracks from Sylvian's twenty years with Virgin Records. ...
'' (2000) and ''
A Victim of Stars 1982–2012
''A Victim of Stars 1982–2012'' is a compilation album by David Sylvian. Released in 2012, the album features songs from his solo work, from Japan's reformation Rain Tree Crow, his collaborations with other artists such as Ryuichi Sakamoto a ...
'' (2012). Sylvian has said that "Ghosts" was the first track that indicated the new direction of his compositions after the Japan period. Sylvian also performed the song during
The First Day Tour (1992) and Slow Fire Tour (1995).
Legacy
The song appeared on the 2006 DJ mix album "Late Night Tales: Air".
The song was played in episode six in the
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
'', and, since April 2008, it has been used in the trailers for another BBC series, ''
''. The song is also featured in the 2008 Norwegian film ''
.
The song was discussed at lengths in - and its lyric provides the title for - theorist
's 2014 critical work ''Ghosts of My Life: Writings on Depression, Hauntology and Lost Futures''.
The synth parts of the song were sampled in The Terrorist (Ray Keith) track "Sing Time", released in 1995.
American alternative metal band
released a cover of the song, which was included on the 2011 cover compilation album, ''
''. There have also been dance covers by Chris & James in 1997 and Tenth Planet in 2001. Both of these versions have been minor hits in the UK.
Credits sourced from Sound On Sound.