“The Ghost of You” by My Chemical Romance

"The Ghost of You" sits on My Chemical Romance's second studio album, Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge, from 2004, and it became the third and last single cut from that record. All five members share the writing credit, Howard Benson produced, Mike Plotnikoff recorded it and Rich Costey mixed it.

It's a big goth-tinged emo ballad that plays the hush-then-roar game to the hilt: Gerard Way murmuring through the verses before Ray Toro and Frank Iero's guitars crash in and Mikey Way and Matt Pelissier drive the choruses skyward. Underneath the drama it's a song about loss and what war takes from people, and Marc Webb's video made that literal, cutting between the band playing a wartime USO dance and charging onto a D-Day battlefield. Critics singled out the chorus and Way's singing, and it still turns up in their live sets.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.