THE SPECIALS - GHOST TOWN @ 40

 

Celebrating it’s 40th anniversary today is the landmark single by The Specials, Ghost Town, which was released on June 12th, 1981. It would not only capture the zeitgeist of a a crumbling UK in the early years of Thatcherism, but it would end up haunting the 21st century as we came to grips with a deadly pandemic in 2020.

The title song began to take shape in Jerry Dammers’ head while touring through the UK in 1980 during a period of severe economic hardship and social unrest as riots became a frequent event in major cities. With shop keepers boarding up windows as a precaution and pensioners on the sidewalks flogging precious mementos for spare change in order to buy food, the depressing conditions of the times seemed to demand a statement from the band. Dammers came to some very specific conclusions in terms of how he wanted this song to sound and feel, meticulously working out every detail of its arrangements, and some of those concepts were quite alien to the other band members, incorporating unfamiliar chord progressions and unusual arrangements in order to create the mood the song required. But Jerry was insistent on these elements, something which only served to exacerbate the already percolating tensions within the band. These conflicts had begun to boil during the recording of their sophomore LP, More Specials, with some members of the group taking exception to Dammers insisted on expanding the sound palette of the band while diverging into other musical styles. Pushing the strange song structure for Ghost Town during its recording nearly resulted in outright rebellion in some cases.

Yet he persisted and managed to get it all recorded. That process itself was something of a deliberate, self inflicted constraint. While More Specials was recorded in a state of the art 24 track studio, its possibilities only caused confusion for bandleader Dammers as he felt overwhelmed by the possibilities on offer. So, for Ghost Town, the decision was made to record on a modest 8 track system, essentially recording all the major parts in mono and then mixing them with stereo reverb and delay. The results of this process give the record a decidedly well balanced sound though it got a little tricky when, at the last minute, Jerry decided he needed to add some flute to the mix and there were no tracks left. He took a gamble on dropping in the overdub on the same track as the horns. It was a dangerous move given the horn section were no longer available for re-recording during the flute recording. If there were any mistakes on the timing of the drop-in, it could bleed over the horn section and ruin it.

The single features two tracks on the B-side. The first, Why?, is an emotional plea for tolerance written by Lynval Golding in the aftermath of a brutal, racially motivated attack that sent him to hospital with broken ribs in 1980. Friday Night, Saturday Morning was written by Terry Hall and offers up a recounting of a mundane night out in Coventry.

The reception of the single upon its release was somewhat mixed in terms of critical response, but any doubts about the song were soon swept aside as, by year’s end, the single was ranked number one on the “best single of the year” lists in all three of the major UK music rags: Sounds, NME and Melody Maker. It became the theme of the times in the UK with its ghostly atmosphere and dire depiction of a decaying urban landscape. As civil unrest and rioting continued after its release, it couldn’t help but be considered the soundtrack to the times. In terms of charting, it held onto the #1 slot for 3 weeks and lingered in the top 40 for ten weeks. It became the crowning achievement of The Specials in their original incarnation, but also their farewell as the band fractured and fragmented soon after its release, with Terry Hall, Lynval Golding & Neville Staple peeling off to form Fun Boy Three before the end of the year.

As brilliant as the title song is, it’s hard to imagine anyone predicting how poignantly appropriate it would become again nearly 40 years after it’s release in the spring of 2020 as the world sunk into the misery of a global pandemic. As COVID-19 sent the population into hiding, closing shops and emptying streets, the refrain, “This town is coming like a ghost town”, became all too much a reality for communities around the world. It’s no wonder the song found itself experiencing a surge of new appreciation and popularity. Its message of loss and suffering echoed across the decades to find a new and even more horrifying reflection than the unrest and fear which had inspired it in the first place.