I got the name from a Kelle Lasn book called Culture Jam. From memory the term went something like this: “We sit around on couches, buying what we think makes us who we are, like a hungry ghost”. I looked up hungry ghost and it actually comes from traditional Chinese Buddhism. It means to have a non-shakable addiction/desire, and you lose yourself to that desire, you lose your identity. The song itself paints imagery of two lovers swimming in a remote quarry with some stacks in the background – they build their own world away from normality and everything else, as if they are trying to escape the ghost. I wanted it to be quiet, dark and paint a feeling of hopelessness. Something like R.E.M’s ‘Nightswimming’, but less sentimental, I guess. In the studio we went through several versions before deciding on a mixture of acoustic and electric guitar and cutting the song in half – so it just constantly built tension.
Officially from the band:
I got the name from a Kelle Lasn book called Culture Jam. From memory the term went something like this: “We sit around on couches, buying what we think makes us who we are, like a hungry ghost”. I looked up hungry ghost and it actually comes from traditional Chinese Buddhism. It means to have a non-shakable addiction/desire, and you lose yourself to that desire, you lose your identity. The song itself paints imagery of two lovers swimming in a remote quarry with some stacks in the background – they build their own world away from normality and everything else, as if they are trying to escape the ghost. I wanted it to be quiet, dark and paint a feeling of hopelessness. Something like R.E.M’s ‘Nightswimming’, but less sentimental, I guess. In the studio we went through several versions before deciding on a mixture of acoustic and electric guitar and cutting the song in half – so it just constantly built tension.