Songfacts®:

• "Ghosts Again" is the lead single from Depeche Mode's 15th studio album, Memento Mori. Released on February 9, 2023, it marks the band's first new music following the death of co-founder and keyboardist Andy Fletcher in May 2022.
• The lyrics of "Ghosts Again" explore the theme of life's transience, as things can suddenly disappear, break, or vanish. They reflect on our mortality, reminding us that one day we too will become "ghosts again," fading into the ether and losing our physical form. According to vocalist David Gahan, the song strikes a perfect balance between melancholy and joy.
• The Memento Mori album title is a Latin expression that translates to "remember you must die." It was originally used to remind proud Roman generals of the inevitability of death and, in the Middle Ages, to exhort people to make the most of their earthly lives. With lyrics that describe "Heaven's dreaming, thoughtless thoughts, my friends," and a "place to hide the tears we cry," "Ghosts Again" serves as a fitting introduction to the themes of life after death that drive Memento Mori.
• Depeche Mode started work on Memento Mori before Andy Fletcher's death, but he didn't record any material for it. "He never got to hear any of it, which is really sad to me because there are songs on this record where I know he'd be like, 'This is the best thing we've had in years,'" Gahan reflected to NME. "I can hear his voice. I can also hear him saying, 'Does every song have to be about death?!'"
• Martin Gore co-wrote "Ghosts Again" with Psychedelic Furs lead singer Richard Butler. Four Memento Mori tracks feature songwriting credits from Butler.
  
  "I've never written with anyone outside of the band in our history," Gore told NME. "Richard reached out to me around April 2020, just texting to say 'We should write some songs together.' I asked for ideas and he sent me a few lines, so I put those to music and we started sending them back and forth.
  
  We ended up writing seven songs. We didn't like the first one, but the other six were so great that I thought it would be a bit of a waste to put them out as a side-project. They just wouldn't get the same sort of exposure as they would if they were put out by Depeche."
• James Ford produced the song, with additional production work by Marta Salogni. Ford single-handedly produced Depeche Mode's previous album, 2017s Spirit. Salogni also mixed and engineered the track.
• Depeche Mode's longtime visual collaborator Anton Corbijn directed the video. We follow Gore and Gahan atop an urban rooftop as they re-enact the chess game with Death from Ingmar Bergman's 1958 film The Seventh Seal. It symbolizes the impossible challenge for a human to win over death. The scenes alternate with shots of the pair performing in a cemetery.
• The song became Depeche Mode's seventh Top 10 hit on Billboard's Alternative Airplay and the band's first since "It's No Good" peaked at #4 in 1997.
• The demos for the Gore and Butler co-writes set unusual challenges, especially the one for "Ghosts Again."
  
  "When I first heard that demo, it made me feel immediately full of joy [laughs] - an odd feeling for me," Gahan told Mojo magazine. "I had to get past hearing Richard singing. Because he's got a really distinctive tone and style. But there was something about his melody and his intonation and his intonation that I warmed to. And some of the lyrics lent heavily into Richard's repertoire of imagery. Yeah let's put it that way. Which I really identified with."