Over 40 years later, and I still gravitate towards the songs on this single, especially for “Ghost Town”. It truly was a masterpiece of a song built during a moments of chaos and turbulence in society but also what was happening within the group. Recommended!
Click here to purchase The Specials – Ghost Town (2021 Remaster/40th Anniversary)
BAND: The Specials
SINGLE: Ghost Town (2021 Remaster/40th Anniversary)
DURATION: 4 Songss, 18 Minutes
YEAR OF RELEASE: June 12, 1981
REMASTER RELEASE: 2021
1. “Ghost Town” (Extended Version)
2. “Why?” (Extended Version)
3. “Friday Night, Saturday Morning”
4. “Ghost Town (Single Version)
In the late ’70s and early ’80s, Two-tone (2 Tone) became popular in the UK. A genre that fused traditional Jamaican ska music, reggae, elements of punk rock and new wave and derived from the record label, 2 Tone Records founded in 1979 by Jerry Dammers, leader of the ska revival band, the Specials.
2 Tone Records at the time was on fire, thanks to the popularity of the Specials, they also had Madness, Rhoda Dakar, Rico Rodriguez, The Selecter, The Bodysnatchers, The Beat, Bad Manners, The Apollinaires, The Swinging Cats and more on the label.
But the Specials are no doubt one of the highlights when it came to ska revival. The band which consisted of vocalists Terry Hall and Neville Staple, Lynval Golding and Roddy Radiation on guitars, Horace Panter on bass, Jerry Dammers on keyboards, John Bradbury on drums, Dick Cuthell and Rico Rodriguez on horns.
The band would sport the 1960’s rude boy outfits (derived from the slang term “rudy” that originated in 1960s Jamaican street culture. Ska and rocksteady music were popular among rude boys who wore suits, thin ties, pork pie or Trilby hats and would attract rude boy and rude girls of that time.
But the band would also attract those into the mod revival scene and the late ’70s and early ’80s skinheads were into both punk and 2 Tone (Note: The first and second wave of skinhead culture in the UK is not the same as the neo-Nazi skinhead movements).
The band had numerous hits in 1979 with “Gangsters”, their controversial song “Too Much Too Young” and would release two popular albums and had female backing vocalists such as Chrissie Hynde of the Pretenders, Rhoda Dakar (of the Bodysnatchers) and The Go-Go’s members Belinda Carlisle, Jane Wiedlin (who was dating Specials vocalist, Terry Hall) and Charlotte Caffrey.
But despite their success, there were conflicts developing within the band which led to the guys taking a few months off from recording and touring and then they got together and released what would become their biggest hit, “Ghost Town”, a non-album single which became No. 1 on the UK Charts in 1981.
Unfortunately, the song proved to be their last single with the original seven members.
And while the song was popular, tensions were bad within the group (as a few members of the band disagreed with band leader, Dammers deciding to incorporate “muzak” keyboard sounds on their album) and Terry Hall, Neville Staple and Lynval Golding would split from the group and started their own group, Fun Boy Three (which the three did well, especially with their collaboration and helping make the female trio, Bananarama popular). But the band lasted only two albums as Terry Hall would suddenly depart the group.
While founder Jerry Dammers would continue with the band with different members, which would be known as Special AKA in 1982.
And while I did continue to enjoy the music from Special AKA, there is no doubt that 1979-1981 were special years with the original seven in the lineup. The timing was right, the music was right and there style and music has not been duplicated.
While the Specials have reunited, to this very day, the original members have not completely reunited and unfortunately, it will never be possible. With the death of drummer John Bradbury in 2015, Neville Staple and Roddy Radiation also left the group in 2014.
Fortunately, some tensions between band members have subsided and even Terry Hall joined the group in 2009 for a reunion (although Dammers did not participate in the tour) and an album release in 2019 but the Specials have continued on with a few original members and with other musicians which have rotated throughout the years. And a few former members show their tribute to the band through their own bands. Neville Staple continues with the Neville Staple Band and celebrated the 40th year anniversary with his own band and has re-recorded a lot of the songs from the Specials.
But mostly everyone from the Specials have gone on to have a career in music and while it’s been over 40 years later, the music of the Specials still holds up quite well.
Especially their 1981 hit “Ghost Town”.
In fact, you can play the song to someone today who are not familiar with the Specials and they may think the song was made recently.
But “Ghost Town” was a major hit as it spent three weeks at No. 1 in the UK Charts and ten weeks in the top 40 of the UK Singles Chart. And the “Ghost Town” single was re-released with a 2021 remastering.
But if anything, the song would be remembered by those who grew up during that time of Thatcher politics, riots taking place in Bristol and Brixton (Black youths clashed with Metropolitan Police for racist discrimination), businesses were closing, unemployment and crime was at its all time high, there was violence in the inner cities.
But you ask yourself, how much has gotten better and how much has not changed in today’s modern world?
“Ghost Town” was a song that that described what the band was seeing while on tour promoting their “More Specials” album in 1980.
Jerry Dammers event said during an interview with the Guardian in 2002, “You traveled from town to town and what was happening was terrible. In Liverpool, all the shops were shuttered up, everything was closing down … We could actually see it by touring around. You could see that frustration and anger in the audience. In Glasgow, there were these little old ladies on the streets selling all their household goods, their cups and saucers. It was unbelievable. It was clear that something was very, very wrong”.
The song is no doubt an anthem for all that is going wrong in one’s city and that is why this song will forever hold up among generation after generation because the problems of the past are repeating itself. Social injustice is still happening. Violent crime is going up, unemployment is going up and now we are dealing with so much other crap in the world, even though modern technologies have improved. But is society any better than it was in 1981?
Suffice to say, the song is incredible but the song was produced when the band members were not getting along. It was pretty bad.
What began with Dammers hearing the reggae song “At The Club” by actor/singer victor Romero Evans, Dammers contacted the song’s co-writer and producer, John Collins and Collins traveled to meet with the Specials and agreed to produce the single.
Wanting to go back to basics by recording at a small 8-track audio at the home of John Rivers, the songs on the single were conceived in ten days despite the band members dealing with mounting tension. So bad that they didn’t’ want to be around each other, nor did they talk to each other. It was bad because no one wanted to try something different, Dammers was losing it and in tears, Roddy Radiation kicked a hole in the studio door.
Even stressing out producer John Collins, when Dammers wanted to add flute to the song last minute. A risk that Collins had to make happen, knowing that because they had no free track, it could destroy the entire song if not done correctly.
Needless to say, amid chaos, the band was able to produce a masterpiece. The first track on the single is the extended version at 6:03 and the four track is the single version at 3:42.
And as for the two B-sides, the songs were also good. “Why?” was about racial tolerance and written by guitarist Lynval Golding after a violent racist attack suffered outside the Moonlight Club in West Hampstead left him hospitalized with broken ribs.
While “Friday Night, Saturday Morning” by Terry Hall singing about an average night in Coventry.
Overall, “Ghost Town” is a song that I can never get tired of listening to. The same goes with the B-side tracks on this entire single. Every song on this single is just addictive but also a seminal single release that reflected the time of instability in the UK, but many people can also identify with the injustice of today.
Over 40 years later, and I still gravitate towards the songs on this single, especially for “Ghost Town”. It truly was a masterpiece of a song built during a moments of chaos and turbulence in society but also what was happening within the group.
Recommended!
Click here to purchase The Specials – Ghost Town (2021 Remaster/40th Anniversary)
