Ross Ellis is an accomplished singer-songwriter with a strong history of penning tracks for country artists such as Tim McGraw. However, his tune "Ghosts" was so personal to him that he simply couldn't let any other artist cut it.

Ellis co-wrote "Ghosts" with Jameson Rodgers, Troy Olsen and John Caldwell. Below, he recounts the true story behind the song, and explains why he and his co-writers intentionally kept the track's meaning ambiguous.

That was actually about an ex-girlfriend; you can kinda hear that. We dated for a long time, and then she moved to Nashville and missed home, and it didn't work out.

I wrote it with [singer-songwriter] Jameson Rodgers and a couple other guys, and it took a little while, because we wanted it to be [a situation] where you didn't know if she died or just left. We wanted that to be kind of ambiguous.

And I've had a lot of people reach out to say, "Thank you, that got me through the death of [somebody close to them]." So that song's been so important to me. It's a very true story. For me, it was [about an ex], but I wanted it to be where people could take from it what they wanted.

Actually, Rascal Flatts wanted [to record] "Ghosts." That was one song that I couldn't give away.

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