Phantom by Mac DeMarco is a two-minute, stripped-back goodbye about the lingering presence of a past love and the wish for one more goodnight.
There’s a line you can’t shake once you hear it. “Sure I’d give it up, just for one more chance to say goodnight.”
He drops it like a confession, then pares everything back until all that’s left is the ache.
Phantom arrives today as the last preview of Guitar, and it plays like a message you send when the die is cast.
We wrote recently about Holy, calling it a quiet prayer caught between miracle and curse.
That prayer has an answer, although not the one you hope for, and it comes in tiny human terms.
“Your phantom sits with me when I’m all alone, I love you still.” The image is simple, almost shy, and it does more work than a wall of metaphors.
Phantom is two minutes of second thoughts set to a folk miniature. You can hear why.
Guitar was written and recorded at home in Los Angeles over twelve November days in 2024, then mixed in Canada and mastered by David Ives.
It is one of those Mac projects where he handles everything, from playing and producing to artwork and videos, and releases it on his own imprint. The sound is small by design, not small in feeling.
If you map the album’s flow, Phantom sits third, right after Sweeter and before Nightmare and Terror. That placement makes it a hinge.
Sweetness recedes, unease gathers, and this song is the moment when memory refuses to cooperate with moving on.
Mac’s writing leans into plain talk that carries weight on the way out.
“Hold your love before it’s gone,” he warns, then folds back into the refrain where the person he’s lost won’t leave the room, even in absence.
The turn that cuts deepest comes later: “Surely, I was wrong, casting spells and singing silly songs, you knew all along.”
You hear a musician known for a sly smile puncture his own myth of romance, and it lands with more honesty than any grand gesture.
Part of the power is how the recording refuses to hide the seams.
There is no studio gloss to distract from the voice and the guitar.
That approach lines up with everything Mac has been saying about Guitar and where he is now, the “no masters” ethic, the do-it-yourself streak that favours closeness over polish.
Officially out on August 19, 2025, Phantom is the final look before the album drops in three days, on August 22.
The rollout started with Home, continued with Holy, and now closes with this tiny goodbye.
It’s the last preview and flags the world tour that starts with three Greek Theatre nights at the end of the month.
That tour schedule underlines the confidence of releasing a whisper and trusting it to carry in large rooms.
On first listen you might wonder if it is a love song or a grief song.
It’s both, and it’s specific. The verses ask whether “all my love” was real or fantasy, the chorus refuses to delete the contact, and the closing thought makes a case for speaking up before regret does the talking for you.
The guitar doesn’t spike or swell. The dynamic is emotional, not technical, which has always been Mac’s trick when he’s at his most affecting.
For listeners who track the arc, Phantom shifts how Guitar reads even before release.
Coming after the patient warmth of Holy, it suggests the record is sequencing a relationship in reverse: tenderness, then absence that won’t leave, then the darker corners you walk through after you’ve said the sensible thing and still feel haunted.
We’ve covered Holy on these pages, and the two songs talk to each other more than any pull-quote can.
One asks for a sign. The other sits with what can’t be fixed. Read them together and you get a portrait of someone who traded big statements for tiny, cutting lines that stick around longer than they have any right to. Our Holy piece is here on Neon Music.
“Surely, I was wrong,” he sings, almost under his breath. You can hear the room around him.
You can hear the decision not to oversell the wound. If Holy felt like an open window, Phantom is the chair by the window after the light goes out.
What do you hear sitting there, and who do you picture in the empty chair next to you.
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Mac DeMarco Phantom Lyrics
Verse 1
Sure I’d give it up
Just for one more chance to say
Goodnight, all my love
Was it real or just fantasy?
Chorus
Your phantom sits with me
When I’m all alone
I love you still
Verse 2
Surely, I was wrong
Casting spells and singing silly songs
You knew all along
Hold your love before it’s gone
Chorus
Your phantom sits with me
When I’m all alone
I love you still
