How Ghost Came Up With Their Hit Song Dance Macabre

Publish date: 2024-05-04

Ultimately, "Dance Macabre" came from the same place as all the rest of Ghost's songs: Project lead Tobias Forge's songwriting philosophy. "With Ghost every song has to have its own clear idea and structure," he told Louder. And in the case of "Dance Macabre," that idea is right in the title: dance. What kind of dance? A goofy macabre one — kind of like a big party where everyone is really into dark eyeshadow. This is exactly what the music video for "Dance Macabre" shows, featuring two hapless dudes strolling up to a manor filled with black-clad goths bouncing on the dancefloor. It's this juxtaposition of appearance versus sound that's arguably helped grant Ghost its success. On appearance alone, Ghost's aesthetic might appear ferocious. But really, it's all just a hoot. 

On that note, Forge talked to Louder about not limiting his music, saying, "With Ghost you can do pretty much anything." With 2018's "Prequelle" he also wanted to expand on the band's previous two albums: 2013's "Infestissumam" and 2015's "Meliora." Moreover, he wanted to make it clear that not every Ghost song "starts with a big guitar intro." On Blabbermouth he also describes how the placement of "Dance Macabre" in the album's tracklist matters, saying, "You cannot really decipher [the album] just by hearing one song." "Dance Macabre," he says, was written to suit its position in the album because he "needed a car chase" for that song's particular vignette.

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