Songfacts®:

• Monroe, Washington, native Benson Boone was completely unaware of his musical talent until he wowed the audience at a school talent show. A year later, he auditioned for American Idol 2021. Despite Katy Perry predicting that Benson could win the competition, he quit the show, preferring to pursue music his own way.
  
  After catching the attention of Dan Reynolds, Benson signed for the Imagine Dragons frontman's' Night Street Records label in a partnership with Warner Records. This song is his debut single.
• The song is about a relationship that's grown cold. Boone suggests to his girlfriend that they breakup so she can find someone who will make her happier. If they carry on with their crumbling romance, her heart will become a "ghost town."
• Benson wrote the song based on emotions pulled from observing a friend's toxic relationship. Every day his friend would tell him how much the romance was hurting him, not helping him. Boone's music career was just starting, and on his way in the Uber to his first writing session, his friend texted him yet again about his girlfriend. It gave the singer an idea that he immediately recorded on his phone. That idea turned into "Ghost Town."
  
  "I saw that from an outside perspective and wondered what they could have done differently," Boone said of the song. "Love can hurt more than it can help. Sometimes the best way of showing someone you care is by letting them go."
• The song went viral on TikTok after users took the lyric "maybe I'd be happier with someone else" to create tongue-in-cheek relationship ultimatums.
• A ghost town is a place that once prospered but is now in decay. Other artists that have written songs about a ghost town include:
  
  The Specials (Addressing urban decay)
  
  The Vaccines (About a love interest's sleepy hometown)
  
  Jake Owen (The singer sees the ghost of his ex wherever he goes)
  
  Adam Lambert (The selling out of Hollywood as a metaphor for heartbreak).
  
  Kanye West (The title doesn't appear in the lyrics but it describes the rapper's bipolar disorder and its deep depression symptom)
  
  The Rolling Stones (About the COVID lockdown)
  
  Madonna (About a burnt out city after Armageddon).
• "Ghost Town" topped the chart in Norway and also charted in over a dozen other countries.