Empty streets and subway stations feature prominently in the video for "Living in a Ghost Town," the Rolling Stones' first original song since 2012. (A covers album, Blue & Lonesome, was released in 2016.)

"It wasn't written for now, but it was just one of those odd things," Mick Jagger tells Zane Lowe, in an interview for Apple Music. "It was written about being in a place which was full of life, but is now bereft of life so to speak."

The song was tracked in Los Angeles in February 2019 as part of a new album ("an ongoing thing," Keith Richards says), but the band recently reworked "Living in a Ghost Town" remotely to tone down some darker lyrics. "It was semi-humorous, then it got less humorous and I don't know," Jagger continues. "Sometimes these things take a long time to write, but this, I just wrote it really quickly in like 10 minutes."

Like many other artists, the Rolling Stones postponed an upcoming tour due to COVID-19 concerns, and is taking this time to work on new music.

"We've got another five or six tracks and there's a lot of sort of soul feel about it for some reason without anybody intending to," Richards says. "Obviously right now we've got nothing else to do but write some more songs, right?"

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.