Ghost have released a music video for 2019 hit Mary On A Cross.
The clip was taken from the hard rockers’ recent film Rite Here Rite Now and is available to watch below.
Mary On A Cross originally came out as part of Ghost’s two-song EP Seven Inches Of Satanic Panic.
The band’s founder and songwriter Tobias Forge, who performs onstage as masked frontman “Papa Emeritus”, has never explained the song’s lyrics.
However, he offered in an interview with Mastodon drummer Brann Dailor: “There are multiple layers in the lyrics that it might be important for people to understand.
“The chorus is written very tongue in cheek of course. ‘Go down’ doesn’t necessarily mean as in a 69 sense of the word… it can also mean go down as in go down in history, your own ascent.”
Forge continued: “Mary doesn’t necessarily mean Mary, mother of Jesus. It might mean Mary Magdalene, the proclaimed whore who might have been the wife of Jesus – just as a symbol for someone who came off as one thing but actually had other intentions and did something else. Someone who’s miscredited.”
Mary On A Cross was picked up by Tiktok after its release and went viral. The song is now a mainstay of Ghost’s setlist and is their most popular track on streaming services, boasting more than 610 million listens on Spotify.
Ghost released Rite Here Rite Now to global cinemas in June.
The movie is half concert film, documenting the band’s twin gigs at The Forum in Los Angeles in September 2023, and half fictitious comedy.
It had a limited four-day theatrical run, but was released to online audiences via livestream this month.
A live version of Mary On A Cross will be heard on the Rite Here Rite Now soundtrack, which comes out on Friday (July 26).
The soundtrack will also feature new studio song The Future Is A Foreign Land.
Ghost are expected to be currently working on their sixth studio album, the follow-up to 2022’s Impera.
