Mick Jagger says that in its original incarnation, the Rolling Stones' new track, “Living In A Ghost Town” seemed to foreshadow the coronavirus pandemic. Jagger spoke about the song, which is Number One on the iTunes Song Chart, and explained that, by coincidence, the song touched upon one's existence turning pretty dark: “It was written about being in a place which was full of life and then now is all bereft of life, so to speak. And when I went back to what I'd written originally, lyrically, y'know, it was all — although I didn't use them in the lyrics — it was all full of plague terms and things like that. I never actually used that, though. It was all there.”
Jagger was asked what the impetus for “Living In A Ghost Town” was: “I was just jamming. I was just playing a guitar and just wrote it like that. I mean, it was semi-humorous, y'know? And then, then it got less humorous (laughs). I don't know, sometimes you write these things (and they) take a long time to write, but this one was very — I just wrote it very quickly in, like ten minutes.”
