Ghost Town Song Analysis

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Professor Dennis William Lee

MUS 301

9 April 2023

A Crazy Song by a Crazy Artist

For decades, Kanye West has cemented his name in pop culture not only with his music, but also with his controversial public endeavors and turbulent personal life. Though often scrutinized and rightfully so, Kanye is never afraid to write about his personal predicaments and broader societal issues in his music. His song “Ghost Town”, released in 2018 as the sixth track in his “ye” album, possesses some of the finest writing in a Kanye record. I will argue that Kanye West’s Ghost Town is a strong musical representation of the many aspects of mental illnesses. I will analyze the lyrics and sonic elements of the song and put it in context of other Kanye West lyrics, his personal life, and the outside world. This is important because the issues that Ghost Town encapsulates are also faced by thousands of people around the world and are indicative of a much broader societal issue.

Ghost Town represents one of the album Ye’s main themes: bipolar disorder, both sonically and lyrically. Kanye was diagnosed with bipolar disorder in 2016, which is a mental disorder that causes massive shifts in mood, energy, and behavior. The “highs” are called manic episodes, the “lows” are called depressive episodes, and many people have no symptoms in between these episodes. It affects almost 6 million adults in the U.S.. (Berman, 2020) The song starts off with a verse by PARTYNEXTDOOR. His vocal delivery is low-energy, pessimistic, and sunken. His speech is slurred and unclear at times. He sings about his longing to lay down and him smoking marijuana. It resembles the depressive episodes that Kanye and other bipolar disorder patients experience. The verse is followed by a chorus by Kid Cudi, which intertwines the other sections. Kid Cudi’s vocals are mournful and slow. The lyrics “I’ve been trying / to make you love me.” is Kanye’s inner confession. In context of the album, it is Kanye expressing his need for self-love and acceptance—a central theme of ye. It then transitions to a verse by Kanye, who sounds like his normal self. The instrumentation is tighter and packs a bit more energy. Kanye’s lyrics reveal his thoughts, which are clear and self-aware. In lines such as “You might think they wrote you off, they gon’ have to rope me off” Kanye switches between addressing himself in second person to first person. This is a reference to the two different states of being he experiences during his episodes. It embodies the symptomless time period between the episodes. The record climaxes in the two-minute long outro, performed by artist 070 Shake. Her vocals are far more dynamic, energetic, and the pitch is notably higher than all other verses. The beat is at its emptiest, sometimes with only powerful, reverbed percussion and distorted laser sounds. The lyrics describe Kanye feeling like a child, “letting it all go”, and engaging in self-harm behavior. The outro symbolizes a manic episode, which is characterized by an abnormally heightened energy level and mood. 

The track is a vivid demonstration of the dangers that isolation and mental health disorders have on its sufferers. According to the American Psychological Association (APA), social isolation is one of the main factors associated with suicide. It can lead to or augment depression and anxiety and can increase the risk of death from every cause (Novotney, 2019). Bipolar disorder patients are 10~30 times more likely to committ suicide than the general population. (Dome et al., 2019) The opening lines of Ghost Town set the stage for the theme of isolation, as Kanye raps, “Some day, someday / I wanna lay down, like God did, on Sunday.” This reference to God may suggest that Kanye is exhausted, tired, and longs to rest. The delivery is similar in nature–low energy, slow and gloomy. The spatial and sparse instrumentation creates a sense of emptiness and loneliness, which adds to the feeling of isolation and despair. However, if taken in context of another song on the same album, the first line may be suggesting something way darker. On the first track of ye, titled “I thought about killing you”, Kanye revealed his struggles with suicidal thoughts. In an interview with The New York Times, he was asked how much of the song is meant to be literal and how much of it is metaphorical, and he responded, “I’ve thought about killing myself all the time. It’s always a option and [expletive].” (Caramanica, 2018) When Kanye wrote that he wants to “lay down”, he was also suggesting that sometimes he contemplated suicide. In the two minute-long outro, Kanye writes that he puts his “hand on a stove to see if I still bleed”, which is a dangerous self-harm behavior that many people do because they feel emotionally numb. They inflict pain upon themselves to feel alive again. Kanye’s mental health problems caused by his bipolar disorder and social isolation are something that plagues society nowadays. 

Another topic that Ghost Town addresses is substance addiction, more specifically fentanyl. Fentanyl is an opioid that is 50 times stronger than heroin and up to 100 times stronger than morphine; it can be prescribed by doctors to treat severe pain after surgery. However, it is highly addictive and can lead to overdoses. (Fentanyl facts 2022) In Kanye’s own verse, he sings “baby don’t you bet it all, on a pack of fentanyl.” When Kanye got liposuction surgery back in 2016, he was prescribed fentanyl to deal with the pain, which caused his fentanyl addiction to start. Its potency and dangers were fully conceived when Kanye underwent a mental breakdown and a week-long hospitalization in 2016 after just two days of withdrawing from opioids. Kanye further details his fight against fentanyl addiction with the following line “You might think they wrote you off.” The “write you off” is a double entendre for doctors writing Kanye excessive prescriptions leading to the public “writing Kanye off”, aka dismissing Kanye for being crazy. In the line “I’m on one two three four five” he is referring to opiods. “I’m on one” is a popular reference to being on drugs, and here Kanye emphasizes the extent of his addiction by implying that he is on not just one, but five opioids. The next line “no half truths just naked minds” describes the effect that fentanyl have on his mind. According to Kanye himself, the reason why he sometimes dropped the crazy tweets or remarks, was because he was “drugged out” (Bailey, 2021). Kanye is saying that the opioids tend to make his thoughts erratic, raw and unfiltered.

In conclusion, Kanye West's song Ghost Town is a compelling representation of mental illness, particularly bipolar disorder, as well as other societal issues such as social isolation and substance addiction. The lyrics and sonic elements of the song provide a poignant look into Kanye's personal struggles with mental illness and his journey towards self-acceptance and self-love. Furthermore, the song highlights the dangers of mental illness and increases awareness for those who suffer from it. In hindsight, Kanye’s mental health struggles and substance abuse, which began during that period, had lasting effects on his mind and eventually contributed to the downfall of his creativity, career, and reputation. Ultimately, "Ghost Town" is more than a remarkable piece of music; it is a haunting reflection on mental illness and a powerful message that resonates with listeners worldwide.

Works Cited

Bailey, Alyssa. “Kanye West: I Had Liposuction and Became Addicted to Opioids before 2016 Hospitalization.” ELLE, ELLE, 29 Nov. 2021, https://www.elle.com/culture/celebrities/a20117049/kanye-west-had-liposuction-became-addicted-to-opioids-video/.

Berman, Michele R. “Understanding Kanye West's Bipolar Disorder.” Medical News, MedpageToday, 15 July 2020, https://www.medpagetoday.com/popmedicine/celebritydiagnosis/87581.

Caramanica, Jon. “Into the Wild with Kanye West.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 25 June 2018, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/25/arts/music/kanye-west-ye-interview.html.

Dome, Peter, et al. “Suicide Risk in Bipolar Disorder: A Brief Review.” Medicina (Kaunas, Lithuania), U.S. National Library of Medicine, 24 July 2019, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6723289/.

“Fentanyl Facts.” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 23 Feb. 2022, https://www.cdc.gov/stopoverdose/fentanyl/index.html#:~:text=Pharmaceutical%20fentanyl%20is%20prescribed%20by,for%20its%20heroin%2Dlike%20effect.

Novotney, Amy. “The Risks of Social Isolation.” Monitor on Psychology, American Psychological Association, May 2019, https://www.apa.org/monitor/2019/05/ce-corner-isolation. 

Recording of Ghost Town: https://youtu.be/qAsHVwl-MU4