While Madonna’s 2015 album, Rebel Heart, faltered on the charts at times thanks to the precedent established by a rocky start with the majority of unfinished songs being leaked before she was ready for release (paired with an ageist lack of radio airplay), the second single was a ballad similar to the style of Madonna’s 90s oeuvre (e.g. “I’ll Remember” and “You’ll See”). After the more upbeat “Living For Love,” the slowed down pace of “Ghosttown” was in keeping with its bereft, post-apocalyptic motif. Detailing the destruction and ruin of society after (as the video posits) nuclear detonation (would that it was that straightforward for the world to come to a so-called end), Madonna, still decked out in couture-like garb and full makeup (proving women only do such things to please themselves), lies alone in her surprisingly well-decorated fallout shelter.
Directed by Madonna staple Jonas Åkerlund (who also gave us M’s iconic “Ray of Light” video) and released on April 8–almost a full five years ago soon enough–the foresight of a world fed to some cataclysmic event was somewhat unusual for Madonna to opt for at a time of “relative” peace in the world. Plus, Americans of the liberal variety were still sated with Barack Obama. But perhaps the prediction of world collapse has never been an intuitive premonition so much as an inevitable given. After all, the earth can only sustain so much trauma wrought by humans before it gives out. Whatever the final straw that breaks the planet’s back could be is irrelevant–whether it’s a nuclear bomb or a widespread pandemic. The point is, a full-fledged “wipeout” of humanity is never going to be how it’s depicted in movies. Instead, it would likely turn out that at least a few survivors–poor bastards–would be left behind. The proverbial burden of “rebuilding” left to them. In this case, that falls to Madonna and Terrence Howard. Yet before M discovers the latter’s existence, she sits alone in her own version of self-quarantine while cozying her head up to a TV screen flickering some final airwaves (it partially reminds one of her TV “fondness” in the video for “Take A Bow”).
On the outside, tarantulas, rats and wolves appear to be the only creatures left as Madonna gets bored enough to leave her Brooklyn basement apartment-esque shelter and see if anything more interesting is going on outside (that’s the fatal flaw of fire signs, you see–an inability to sit still). Turns out, no, there’s not. There is absolutely nothing cooking, other than maybe one of those rats in a randomly burning fire. Finding a top hat and putting it on, M takes to the desolate outside world that looks very akin to most major cities at the moment.
This vibe, paired with the lyrical content of the track, has prompted fans across the globe to resuscitate the song as a soundtrack to videos of their cities (complete with iconic landmarks like the Louvre and the Duomo in Milan) deserted–as though abandoned by the very form of nuclear catastrophe that Madonna depicted in “Ghosttown.” As she dabbles a bit in a broken down playground (this used to be her playground, after all), she then tries to see if there’s any dial tone on a pay phone–whose number she would actually have memorized is unclear (maybe Debi Mazar’s?). In any case, this sets her off into a fit of sad-rage frustration as she hits some of the random wreckage with a golf club, attracting the attention of Terrence, equipped with a gun for protection. Set to aim at whatever creature has entered his territory, he sees Madonna and instead decides to follow her.
With his gun aimed at her, he comes out of the darkness to approach her at a certain point. Engaging in a hunter-hunted showdown, the dance between them turns into a literal one as they both drop their weapons, cutting the sexual tension with a tango. After which, an errant child shows up. The three walk toward the ruins of the city, a wolf joining them for an immediate re-creation of the classic nuclear (no pun intended) family unit. For society, when rebuilding, will likely still not be very original with how it chooses to do so.
Regardless, the strange premonitory vision of Madonna’s 2015 single seems to echo how those couples in quarantine are feeling right about now, with lyrics like, “You’re all that I can trust/Facing the darkest days/Everyone ran away/We’re gonna stay here, we’re gonna stay here.” That latter sentiment sounds a lot like the fucking weirdly devoted to NYC people who should’ve dipped the moment signs of catastrophe showed (most palpably in 2001: a terrorist odyssey). Because that shit is about to become an exact replica of the prison setup in Escape From New York. Then again, Madonna is one of those people stupidly attached to a city that never gave anyone a goddamn thing (even if her quarantine diaries are coming live from London for now).
That Madonna was never speculating what it would be like if, but when the world fell apart is also manifest in the portrait, “When it all falls, when it all falls down/I’ll be your fire when the lights go out/When there’s no one, no one else around/We’ll be two souls in a Ghosttown.” It isn’t very comforting to single people, but hey, you can’t count on an asexual to keep the species going when things get down to the bare minimum. What’s more, this is a love song for the age of the apocalypse. A time when people can no longer pretend that capitalism is “working” and our “things” are enough to keep us safe and warm at night. Enough of a distraction to stave off the loneliness. Which is why M explained of her inspiration behind writing it, “This one is about the city after armageddon. The burnt out city, the crumbling buildings, the smoke that’s still lingering after the fire. You know what I mean? There’s only a few people left. How do we pick up the pieces and go on from here? Kind of dramatic. But not entirely impossible at this stage of the game… And we’ll all be in our version of a ‘Ghosttown’ or in a version of a ‘Ghosttown,’ and at the end of the day, all we’re going to have left is each other.”
Again, it’s as though Madonna is speaking straight to the soul of couples in quarantine, a phenomenon that has become like the twenty-first century version of Noah’s Ark. To that point, Madonna seemed to be postulating that the cosmic energy on Planet Earth for these past few decades was bound to conjure something calamitous. For her entire Kabbalist-driven philosophy is based on the energy put out being the energy that’s given back. And Earth has very much tossed back our own energy into our no longer smug faces with this pandemic.
As Madonna phrases it, “Everything’s bound to break, sooner or later.” How it breaks, of course, invariably tends to result in the ghost town tableau. The quiet after a storm. Or a purge.
