This song is a true story: I used to live in Altadena, and ever since the fire, I was wondering how my old house and how my landlords' house fared (they're right next door to each other). A friend and I drove there a few weeks ago, and my old house and my landlords' house are still standing! The house next door to my landlords' house was also standing. But the whole rest of the block, and most of the rest of the street, were burnt down - just total devastation. These 2 houses, which used to be such happy places, looked sad. They looked ghostly. They looked like houses that didn't know what to do with themselves, being on a block of houses that had been destroyed. They looked desolate and uncanny. That's what this song is about.