Songfacts®:

• This song was inspired by the Dan Clowes graphic novel of the same title, which was later made into a movie, also called Ghost World (starring Scarlett Johansson). The lyrics deal with friendship and the frustrating, mundane aspects of going to high school in a town you're trying to escape - the subject of the graphic novel:
  
  Everyone I know is acting weird or way too cool
  ...
  I'm bailing this town or tearing it down
  Or probably more like hanging around
• Many of Aimee Mann's songs are written in character, but "Ghost World" is personal, reflecting on her childhood growing up in Bon Air, Virginia.
  
  "It's about me being 17 and not knowing what to do with my life, but wanting to just get out of town," she explained in the liner notes to her album Bachelor No. 2 Or, The Last Remains Of The Dodo. "That sad stretch of life when your parents don't have to take care of you anymore, but you don't yet know how to take care of yourself. Your friendships are drifting apart. You're alone and you don't have any one to turn to. I did it though, I bailed, I got out."
• The music video shot in small town and high school gym. In it, Mann wears the quirky, creative thrift store costume outfits worn by the characters Enid Coleslaw and Rebecca Doppelmeyer in the Ghost World graphic novel.
• "Ghost World" is part of Aimee Mann's 2000 album Bachelor No. 2 Or, The Last Remains Of The Dodo, which she released independently after her label, Geffen Records, let her go. When you think of short-sighted record company choices, this is an exemplar. Mann contributed eight songs to the 1999 Magnolia soundtrack, which went Gold and earned her lots of new fans. But singer-songwriters - especially those with ovaries - were out of favor in 2000 so Geffen had little interest in Mann, who did very well even without Geffen pushing her songs to radio.