Roll of the Dice: Ghosts

“Death’s final and lasting gift to the living is an expanded vision of life itself.” 

–Bruce Springsteen, on stage nightly in 2023

“Ghosts” is a haunted song.

You might not realize it on first listen, because “Ghosts” is as raucous, celebratory, galvanizing, and life-affirming as the best of Springsteen’s anthems, among which it surely ranks.

But it’s also haunted.

So is its singer, from the very first line: I hear the sound of your guitar coming in from the mystic far.

“Ghosts is about the beauty and joy of being in a band,” explained Springsteen when the single first dropped. But he also added, “and the pain of losing one another to illness and time.”

On both record and stage, it’s easy to hear the joy. It takes a closer listen to hear the pain.

We might not want to. It’s been a long couple of years, and who could blame us for wanting to crank up the stereo or rock out in an arena without thinking about our losses?

But we should. Bruce surely does, each and every time he plays “Ghosts” nightly. He’s both the song’s messenger and audience, nursing his pain by feeding his joy. He’s figured out what we all learn as we age: the sweetest joys are the most ephemeral.

The plot twist is one we only learn toward the end of our lives: everything is ephemeral.

At first, and for much of the song, Bruce sings to his childhood friend and former bandmate, George Theiss. The founder of Bruce’s very first band, The Castiles, Theiss loomed large in Bruce’s life, setting him on a path he’s walked ever since.

Theiss passed away five years ago this month, a few weeks shy of fifty years since The Castiles’ final performance. Springsteen visited him in his final days.

“George had been in a rough battle with lung cancer the last years of his life and he only had a few days to live,” Bruce recalled from the stage earlier this year. “And I realized that his passing would leave me as the last surviving member of [The Castiles]. It’s sort of like you’re standing on the railroad tracks, with the white-hot light of an oncoming train bearing down on you. It brings a certain clarity of thought that you haven’t previously experienced.”

With that newfound clarity of thought, Springsteen went home and wrote “Last Man Standing.” Most of what became Letter to You followed shortly thereafter.

Bruce has used that phrase a lot in the years since: last man standing. Although he never voices it, I get the sense that in his mind, it’s followed by the words: next to go.

That’s the specter that haunts “Ghosts.” Not the surface joy, nor the subtext of loss, but the undeniable truth of: you’re next.

We don’t hear it immediately, though. As “Ghosts” opens, Bruce speaks to his fallen friend, who visits him in a dream.

I hear the sound of your guitar
Coming in from the mystic far
The stone and the gravel in your voice
Come in my dreams and I rejoice

It’s your ghost moving through the night
Spirit filled with light
I need you by my side
Your love and I’m alive

It’s territory Bruce has trod elsewhere–even on the same album, in fact. “I’ll See You in My Dreams” is essentially a song-length expansion of the first verse of “Ghosts.”  The notion of ghosts as friendly companions has been part of his private and public musings since at least the passing of Clarence Clemons in 2011.

“When you’re young, you’re taught that ghosts are frightening,” Bruce explained to his Vancouver audience in 2012. “But as you get older, you realize that ghosts and spirits of your lost friends… have imprinted themselves on your heart. They’ve become an indelible part of your life. You carry them with you, good spirits everywhere you go.”

The hook in “Ghosts” is the I’m alive! that leads into the chorus. It’s a playful contrast to the notion of ghosts and spirits, but it’s also a primal scream of gratitude, relief, joy, and carpe diem desperation.

Bruce has always known a good hook when he stumbles on one, but even he couldn’t have imagined just how much those two words–I’m alive!–would resonate with his audiences by the time they’d first hear them live, on the tail end of a devastating, years-long pandemic.

Maybe it’s the catharsis in those words, but it’s all too easy to focus all of our attention on them and miss the remainder of the chorus. That’s where the true haunting begins.

I can feel the blood shiver in my bones
I’m alive and I’m out here on my own
I’m alive and I’m coming home

Even as he rejoices, Bruce feels a chill in his bones. He’s alive, but the rest of his original bandmates aren’t. (Ordinarily in these essays, I differentiate between the songwriter and his point-of-view character, but “Ghosts” is so clearly autobiographical that it seems silly to do so here.)

He’s not literally alone. Both in the studio and on stage, he’s surrounded by musical compadres who have been by his side for fifty years, which makes the three-year lifespan of The Castiles a veritable eyeblink. But he’s existentially alone, as we all are–each of us on our own journey.

The last line of the chorus–and the song–reveals the song’s haunted heart: I’m alive… and I’m coming home. This is a singer who knows he’s next, knows he has far fewer tomorrows than yesterdays, more goodbyes than hellos. The Castiles will reunite soon enough.

And at this point, his awareness subtly but powerfully transforms the song.

Old buckskin jacket you always wore
Hangs on the back of my bedroom door
Boots and the spurs you used to ride
Click down the hall but never arrive

Your old Fender Twin from Johnny’s Music downtown
Still set on 10 to burn this house down
Count the band in then kick into overdrive
By the end of the set we leave no one alive

Ghosts running through the night
Our spirits filled with light
I need, need you by my side
Your love and I’m alive

We notice the continued use of spectral imagery: a pair of cowboy boots clicking down the hall is a delightfully spooky, almost Scooby-Doo-ish trope, but it’s also (we assume) completely apropos for Theiss’ younger self.

We feel the singer lose himself in memory and reverie: burn the house down, kick into overdrive, leave no one alive all sound very much like the utterances of budding, sixteen-year-old, would-be rock and roll stars.

But perhaps we miss the subtle shift of the second chorus: it’s no longer your ghost but our ghosts filled with light, running through the night. It’s temporary–ephemeral–but for a moment, Bruce has one foot in this world and one in the next, which makes the rest of the chorus feel all the more lonely when he rouses to realize:  I’m out here on my own.

The E Street Band hushes here, so that Bruce might have his final moments of communion with his former bandmates.

I shoulder your Les Paul and finger the fretboard
I make my vows to those who’ve come before
I turn up the volume, let the spirits be my guide
Meet you brother and sister on the other side

This is where past becomes present. Bruce is deliberately vague in his reference to “those who’ve come before.” It refers to both the musical influences of a high-school guitarist and the fallen comrades of a septuagenarian rock star, allowing the singer a moment of temporal confluence before the final chorus and “la la” coda, in which the entire E Street Band join him, playing the roles of ghosts themselves.

Let’s talk about the band for a moment.

All the while Bruce relives his Castile days, he’s surrounded by a track that’s as E Street as it gets–toe to toe with “Livin’ in the Future” as the 21st-century Springsteen track with the most 20th-century E Street sound.

With its Mighty Max lead-in and late-song crescendo, jangly guitars, buoyant bassline, Little Steven harmony vocals, delicate piano caesura, and the wait-for-it sax solo that ushers in the most joyful wordless coda in the entire Springsteen catalog, “Ghosts” sounds for all the world like it belongs on The River rather than Letter to You.

And even that is almost certainly intentional. It’s as if Bruce is telling us: this, too, is ephemeral. We’re meant to take notice of what’s taking place before us, because someday they’ll be ghosts too.

For years, Bruce would tell interviewers he played for each audience in the belief that it was somebody’s first show. Today he plays as if it might be his last.

I’ve seen ten shows–so far–on this tour, each one unique, indelible and impossible to fully capture on YouTube or streaming audio, and certainly not on social media setlist discussion threads.

To criticize a static setlist or hold up a sign for an obscure favorite is to miss the beauty of a living forest because we’re searching for our favorite tree.

If you’re fortunate enough to see even a single show this year, take it all in–from the moment Bruce counts the band in and kicks into overdrive. Feel every beat. Because today, we’re all alive. Today, we’re by each other’s sides. Tomorrow makes no promises.

And if that sounds too morbid a thought to carry into a rock and roll show, isn’t that what rock and roll is all about? A joyful noise, an affirmation of life, communion and defiance in the face of all that life tossed at us yesterday and will no doubt hurl our way tomorrow.

Or as Bruce puts it on stage: “George’s death made me realize how important seizing the moment is, living every moment as deeply as you can. That’s why we get together like this. It’s to remember we’re alive.”

Remind yourself, like Bruce does: I’m alive!

Someday we’ll be out there on our own.

Ghosts
Recorded: November 2019
Released: Letter to You (2020)
First performed: December 12, 2020 (New York City, NY)
Last performed: September 1, 2023 (East Rutherford, NJ)

Looking for your favorite Bruce song? Check our full index. New entries every month!