Songfacts®:

• Japan were a British group fronted by David Sylvian that had some success in the late 1970s and early 1980s but were little-known elsewhere. "Ghosts" is one of their most enduring songs and their highest chart entry, reaching #5 in the US. The song is indeed haunting, with Sylvian sorting out his own thoughts as he wonders why he isn't happy even though he's living his dream:
  
  Just when I thought I could not be stopped
  When my chance came to be king
  The ghosts of my life blew wilder than the wind
  
  Sylvian has said the song is very personal.
• Despite the song's success, Japan split in 1982 a few months after its release. David Sylvian explained to Mojo September 2009: "I had begun achieving the goal, the band was becoming successful, but I was finding myself no happier than when I had started, even if I had gained a sense of self-sufficiency. My experience of the world was very cloistered. I didn't like being held in. I didn't like being documented. I didn't like people walking in my footsteps. I found the experience of the modicum of fame I had underwhelming. It wasn't what I wanted, and that was a revelation. So I had to re-evaluate and there was turbulence in that as I was going to have to upset the lives of some very dear friends. But again it was a means of survival and a means of trying to find a purposeful existence. 'Ghosts' sort of preempts all that. By disbanding the group it enabled me to move in any direction I wanted without compromise."
• Sylvian told Mojo that this song is the only piece that Japan produced that still resonates with him because it's the most autobiographical piece. He explained: "It was the only time I let something of a personal nature come through and that set me on a path in terms of where I wanted to proceed in going solo."
• A song with an entirely minimal keyboard-driven arrangement, "Ghosts" was one only a very few such "minimalist" songs to reach the UK Top 10. According to David Sylvian, the group's bass player, Mick Karn, didn't play on the song.
• As Japan moved away from guitars and got more moody, frontman David Sylvian got a reputation for being a bit of a sourpuss thanks to his melancholy lyrics and delivery. But for him, singing about being sad could make him happy.
  
  "I'm not a depressive," he told NME. "I enjoy my depressions. I actually find 'Ghosts' optimistic, not pessimistic. I think that on the whole album there's a feeling of hope all the way through."
• Japan were signed to Virgin Records when they released their fifth album, Tin Drum, which includes "Ghosts" (their first three were on Hansa, which dropped them). Virgin didn't want to release "Ghosts" as a single, but Sylvian lobbied for it.
  
  "I just felt we had something original there to offer, and its strange popularity felt like justification, vindication," he told Uncut. "It became a very important piece of music in terms of my own development, my confidence. It was personal, but it was out there communicating. That was gratifying."