Ghost On The Dance Floor

Speaking with Alternative Addiction, guitarist Tom DeLonge explained blink-182's sixth studio album, Neighborhoods, mixes all three band members influences. "In the album you'll hear elements of hip-hop rhythms mixed with suburban punk and indie rock experimentation," he said. The mixture of the trio's influences is what drove the album title. "I presented that title and everyone kind of connected with it," DeLonge explained. "I think it has to do with the fact that all three of us grew up in totally different neighborhoods, and it represents all three of our worlds colliding."

DeLonge and blink-182's other lyricist - bassist Mark Hoppus - take a different approach lyrically. "Mark tends to write very matter-of-fact, DeLonge explained to Alternative Addiction. "He's really good about singing real things going on in the room around you. I approach it differently. We have a song called 'Ghost on the Dance Floor' that to me was a throwback to when I was a kid. I listened to these really cool Oingo Boingo and Depeche Mode songs from the '80s where there are dark and poetic approaches to love. On that song for example, it's about being somewhere and hearing a song that reminds you of somebody that's passed on. To me, that's a kid loving 'Dead Man's Party' by Oingo Boingo, but it's just not as poppy. It's very '80s. It's a clever way of remembering somebody that you care about. I approach things like alternative '80s bands, that's kind of ingrained in me."

Prior to the recording of Neighborhoods, Blink lost the band's frequent producer Jerry Finn to a cerebral hemorrhage and close friend Adam "DJ AM" Goldstein to an apparent drug overdose. At first, it was widely reported that this song was about the deaths of the fallen pair, but DeLonge told Billboard magazine this was not the case. However, he added: "One of the things I like is the fact it did strike some of those emotional chords in people. That's what music's supposed to do."