The Intro
Few number 1s have captured the zeitgeist like The Specials’ Ghost Town. This classic state of the nation address was released and climbed the charts amidst mass rioting that had spread to most cities in the UK. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s politics had resulted in rising unemployment and disaffected youth. Ghost Town was one of the finest chart-toppers of the decade and spoke volumes to Thatcher’s Britain.
Before
Following the success of their number 1 EP, Too Much Too Young – The Special A.K.A. Live!, The Specials hunkered down to record their second album, More Specials. However, it wasn’t a happy experience, as Jerry Dammers became the 2-Tone band’s leader and producer, and added Muzak sounds to the mix of pop, ska and reggae. This didn’t go down well with guitarist Roddy Radiation, who wanted to steer the group in a rockabilly direction. Singer Terry Hall also began contributing his own material. In the meantime, they released hit double A-side single Rat Race/Rude Buoys Outa Jail, which peaked at five.
More Specials was released in September 1980, and the first single, Stereotypes, reached six. The follow-up, Do Nothing/Maggie’s Farm, was their most successful single to date, reaching four.
However, the accompanying tour was fraught with the growing tensions within the band, as well as audience violence. As The Specials drove around the country, Dammers was haunted by the effects of recession. Shops were closing, unemployment was spiralling, and people were starting to riot in protest. Using ‘weird diminished chords’, as he said in a 2011 interview for The Independent, Dammers began to put his thoughts into music, working on a tune that conveyed ‘impending doom’, matched to sparse lyrics.
In March 1981, Dammers asked reggae writer and producer John Collins to produce Ghost Town, opting for a small 8-track in a house that had been recommended by bassist Horace Panter. The Specials had recorded their last album in a large 24-track professional space, with room for the whole band to play live. For Ghost Town, Collins built the song out of asking each member to perform their piece, one at a time. This didn’t help improve the general mood within the band, who recorded the three-track single over 10 days that April. Dammers, who had spent a year meticulously working out the song, stormed out of the sessions more than once. Radiation kicked a hole in the studio door, singer Neville Staple refused to do what Dammers wanted, and rhythm guitarist/vocalist Lynval Golding ran into the studio insisting the recording was going wrong.
Collins liked the idea of Ghost Town sounding like an authentic roots reggae song, and brought the Sly and Robbie-produced What a Feeling by Gregory Isaacs to the studio for drummer John Bradbury for inspiration. Collins also suggested the Hammond organ rhythm played by Dammers throughout. The shortage of tracks available to record on added to the old-school recording techniques used by Collins, who recorded every instrument in mono, then added stereo reverb over the top. The backing track was almost finished when Dammers insisted on adding a flute, played by Paul Heskett from the band King, which led to a very nervous Collins in danger of accidentally wiping the brass section (Dick Cuthell and Rico Rodriguez) from the entire recording.
Collins took the tracks away and mixed at his home for three weeks. Hall, Staple, Golding and Dammers, who had performed backing vocals, all visited Collins at various points at this time to add further vocals. All that was left was for the producer to add the synthesiser that created the ghostly whistle at the start and end of the song.
Review
Pop, art and politics combine to spellbinding effect on Ghost Town. As a song, it’s unique. As a number 1, it’s incredible. Although written in response to riots in Bristol and Brixton in 1980, it landed at number 1 the day after rioting in cities across the country. Yes, chart-toppers had summed up the public mood in song before – A Whiter Shade of Pale, for example. But that was a blissful psychedelic record in keeping with the Summer of Love. Ghost Town was the polar opposite. The only comparison at the top of the hit parade would be God Save the Queen, if you were to be controversial.
The lyrics to Ghost Town are blunt and concise. Thatcher is never mentioned, but the results of her politics are laid bare. It was six years before the Prime Minister famously said ‘There’s no such thing as society’. However, pre-Falkland War, she was immensely unpopular for plunging the country into recession, with unemployment figures reaching new highs – a 70% rise in two years. ‘All the clubs are being closed down’ was a direct reference to the Locarno in Coventry, which was often frequented by Staple and Golding. The ‘Too much fighting on the dancefloor’ was a sadly familiar sight to The Specials, whose music was popular with skinheads. Despite the 2 Tone act’s admirable attempts to urge their fans to embrace unity, race was a sadly inevitable issue in a divided Britain.
The verses are so on the ball, the chorus needs no words. The wailing that is in its place is at once scary, horrible, ridiculous and histrionic. And the brief blast of nostalgia to the good old days ‘before the Ghost Town’ is a great piece of music in itself, timed perfectly so you long for more before we’re all too quickly returned to 1981. Dammers has later claimed that it was obvious to him that Hall, Staple and Golding were planning to leave the group, and that Ghost Town is also referring to the current mood within the band. Which makes the upbeat section sounding so much like classic Specials that much sadder. The rest of the band weren’t keen on Dammers’ experiments with muzak, but it’s used to great, unsettling effect on Ghost Town – not sure I’ve heard muzakal reggae before or since. So great is this track, it makes it hard to sympathise with the rest of the band. Dammers’ ego may have taken over, but how could you argue against his genius vision here?
The video to Ghost Town is an early classic of the medium. Graphic designer Barney Bubbles filmed Panter driving the band around the deserted streets of London in a Vauxhall Cresta, which was achieved by filming in the early hours of a Sunday morning. The shots of the band miming along were enabled by a camera attached to the bonnet via a rubber sucker – which you can see fall off at 1:18. The eerily lit shots of the band at night deeply unnerved me as a child, as did Staple’s demeanour. Though now I’m older, his pointed interjections of ‘Why must the youth fight against themselves?/Government leaving the youth on the shelf’ are the soul of the song.
After
The inevitable split happened very quick. Hall, Staple and Golding announced to Dammers at their triumphant Top of the Pops appearance after reaching number 1. Soon after they formed Fun Boy Three, who became best known for their excellent collaborative covers of It Ain’t What You Do (It’s the Way That You Do It) and Really Saying Something with Bananarama in 1982.
The Specials reverted to their previous name, The Special AKA, with a revolving line-up. Their first post-Ghost Town release in 1982 couldn’t have been more different. The Boiler, credited to Rhoda with The Special AKA, was a disturbing new wave tale of date rape that only reached 35. The next single, Jungle Music, was credited to Rico and The Special AKA, and failed to chart. Neither did War Crimes or Racist Friend, their first release of 1983.
However, their 1984 LP In the Studio, featured the number nine anti-apartheid carnivalesque track Free Nelson Mandela, which was their last charting single. Following the release of What I Like Most About You Is Your Girlfriend, Dammers announced The Special AKA was disbanding.
In 1993, producer Roger Lomas was asked by Trojan Records to find a new group to back ska superstar Desmond Dekker. Lomas approached everyone from The Specials, and Radiation, Staple, Golding and Panter took up the offer. With the addition of various session musicians, the album King of Kings was credited to Desmond Dekker and The Specials. Buoyed by the experience, this version of the band went on to record two LPs, Today’s Specials in 1996 and Guilty ’til Proved Innocent! in 1998. Two more albums, Skinhead Girl (2000) and Conquering Ruler (2001) followed, but minus Golding.
In 2007, Hall and Golding teamed up for the first time since Fun Boy Three split up in 1983, to perform Specials songs with Lily Allen and Damon Albarn at the Glastonbury Festival. The following year, Hall and Golding were joined by Staple, Panter, Radiation and Bradbury to perform at Bestival, and announced they were to tour the following year to celebrate the group’s 30th anniversary. This made many a rude boy happy, but not Dammers, who was quoted saying Hall and co’s actions amounted to a takeover. In 2012 The Specials performed at the Olympic Games closing ceremony in London.
2013 saw the departure of Staple, and Radiation left the following year, to be replaced on guitar by Ocean Colour Scene’s Steve Cradock. In 2015, Bradbury died, aged 62. He was briefly replaced for live dates by Gary Powell of The Libertines, before PJ Harvey’s drummer Kenrick Rowe took over.
In 2019, Hall, Golding and Panter were joined by Cradock and Rowe and session musicians to record Encore, the first Specials release to feature Hall since Ghost Town and their first chart-topping album since 1980. Buoyed by its success, one final album, Protest Songs 1924-2012 was released in 2021.
Another album was planned, but the comeback was derailed permanently by the shock death of Hall due to pancreatic cancer in 2022. Soon after, Panter confirmed there was no point continuing without their much-loved vocalist and songwriter.
The Outro
The Specials were one of a kind. In their original incarnation, they combined pop, ska, reggae and political commentary better than the rest. Their fanbase were and are rightly devoted to them. Their live shows were legendary, and they released some of the most exciting and interesting material of the early 80s.
It’s a shame egos and differences in direction broke up that first line-up, but some acts only burn brightly for a while. Dammers may have been too weird for the group to have continued scoring mainstream pop success, but Ghost Town was mostly his doing, and what an amazing feat to accomplish. With its righteous anger, it’s one of the best pop singles of all time, let alone one of the best number 1s of the 80s. If your only issue with this 7-inch is that it doesn’t go on long enough, check out the extended version.
10 years after its initial release, Ghost Town Revisited packaged the original mix with Ghost Dub ’91, credited to Special Productions. It’s superfluous.
The Info
Written by
Jerry Dammers
Producer
John Collins
Weeks at number 1
3 (11-31 July)
Trivia
Births
14 July: Singer Lee Mead
Deaths
11 July: Liberal Party politician John Beeching Frankenburg
17 July: Footballer Sam Bartram
23 July: Welsh Labour Party MP Goronwy Roberts, Baron Goronwy-Roberts
25 July: Journalist Alice Head
Meanwhile…
11 July: More rioting – this time in Bradford, West Yorkshire.
13 July: Martin Hurson is the sixth prisoner to die in the IRA hunger strike.
Also on this day, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher announces police can use rubber bullets, water cannons and armoured vehicles on rioters.
15 July: Police battle black youths in Brixton after police raid properties in search of petrol bombs, which are never found.
16 July: Labour narrowly hold on to the Warrington seat in a by-election, fighting off former member Roy Jenkins, now with the new SDP.
17 July: The Humber Bridge is officially opened by Queen Elizabeth II. At the time, it was the longest suspension bridge in the world, and my Dad helped supply the cement that built it.
20 July: Secretary of State for the Environment Michael Heseltine tours recession-hit Merseyside to examine the area’s problems.
27 July: The British Telecommunications Act separates British Telecom from the Royal Mail, with effect from 1 October.
Also on this day, the two-month-old daughter of Princess Anne and Captain Mark Phillips is christened Zara Anne Elizabeth.
28 July: Margaret Thatcher blames IRA leaders for the hunger strike deaths.
29 July: The ‘fairytale’ wedding of Prince Charles II and Lady Diana Spencer takes place at St Paul’s Cathedral. More than 30 million view the event on television, making it the second highest TV audience of all time.