Government Putting Youth on the Shelf: The Specials & 'Ghost Town

In July 1981, The Specials reached Number One with a song about unemployment, racial tension and Britain's declining industrial towns. As riots spread across the country, 'Ghost Town' became the soundtrack to a summer of unrest, while the band responsible for it were falling apart.

On 9 July 1981, The Specials appeared on 'Top of the Pops' to perform 'Ghost Town', a song that had just reached Number One in the UK Singles Chart. It should have been one of the happiest moments in the band's short career. In just two years, seven musicians from Coventry had helped establish an entire musical movement, taken ska into the mainstream and produced some of the most important British records of the period.

Instead, the group were barely speaking to one another. The arguments that had followed them through recording sessions, rehearsals and tours had become increasingly difficult to ignore, and the success of 'Ghost Town' had done little to improve relationships. By the time the band left the BBC studios that evening, the original line-up was effectively finished.

Britain was experiencing some of the worst civil unrest in its recent history. Rioting had already broken out in Brixton earlier that year, while serious disturbances in Liverpool's Toxteth district had begun only days before 'Ghost Town' reached the top of the charts. Further violence would follow in Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds and other parts of the country.

Here was a Number One single describing abandoned towns, unemployment and growing public anger, released just as the events it described were dominating the national news. Jerry Dammers had written the song after witnessing the deterioration of British towns and cities while touring with The Specials. He could hardly have imagined quite how closely the record would become associated with the summer of 1981.

I've always regarded 'Ghost Town' as one of the greatest British songs ever recorded. Its importance extends well beyond the events surrounding its release, although understanding how The Specials reached that point makes the record even more remarkable.

Coventry and the Birth of 2 Tone

The story begins in Coventry during the late 1970s. Once one of Britain's most important manufacturing centres, the city had been transformed by the motor industry, with factories employing thousands of workers and attracting families from across the country and overseas. By the end of the decade, however, the industry was struggling, unemployment was rising, and the economic security that previous generations had taken for granted was becoming increasingly uncertain.

Coventry was also a multicultural city, with substantial communities whose families had arrived from the Caribbean and elsewhere during the post-war period. Jamaican ska, rocksteady and reggae could be heard alongside British punk, soul and the records being played in local clubs. For Jerry Dammers, a young musician studying in the city, those different influences offered the possibility of creating something that reflected the people living around him.

The group that became The Specials emerged in 1977, initially performing as The Coventry Automatics before adopting the name The Special AKA. Dammers played keyboards, with Horace Panter on bass, Lynval Golding and Roddy Radiation on guitars, John Bradbury on drums, and Terry Hall and Neville Staple providing the distinctive vocal combination that became central to their sound. Trombonist Rico Rodriguez and trumpeter Dick Cuthell would also become important contributors.

Their music drew heavily on Jamaican ska, particularly artists such as Prince Buster and The Skatalites, but the influence of punk was equally apparent. These weren't polite recreations of records from the 1960s. The Specials played with the urgency of the new wave bands emerging across Britain, while their lyrics addressed the circumstances facing young people in their own communities.

In 1979, Dammers established 2 Tone Records, creating a label that would become almost as important as the band itself. Its black-and-white chequerboard design was immediately recognisable, while the distinctive Walt Jabsco figure, dressed in a suit, sunglasses and pork pie hat, was based partly on an early photograph of Jamaican musician Peter Tosh.

At a time when the National Front was attempting to build support among disaffected young people, the symbolism was significant. The Specials were a multiracial group performing music rooted in both Jamaican and British traditions, with Black and white musicians sharing the same stage. Their existence challenged the divisions that far-right organisations were seeking to encourage, although the band would discover that those tensions did not disappear simply because their records were successful.

The label also provided a platform for other musicians. The Selecter, fronted by Pauline Black, became one of the leading names associated with 2 Tone, while Madness and Birmingham's The Beat released early singles through the label. The resulting movement extended far beyond Coventry, introducing a new generation to ska and creating one of the most recognisable musical and visual identities in British pop.

Too Much Too Young

The Specials' breakthrough came with 'Gangsters', released in 1979. Built around a recognisable influence from Prince Buster's 'Al Capone', the single combined a sharp reggae rhythm with the energy of punk and Terry Hall's wonderfully understated delivery. It reached Number Six in the UK, establishing the band as one of the most exciting new acts in the country.

Their self-titled debut album followed later that year, produced by Elvis Costello. 'The Specials' remains a brilliant record, moving between original compositions and interpretations of Jamaican classics without sacrificing the band's individual character. 'A Message to You Rudy', 'Nite Klub', 'Concrete Jungle' and 'Too Much Too Young' helped establish a group who could make people dance while addressing subjects considerably more serious than those usually associated with the charts.

There was humour in their music, too, although it could be particularly cutting. 'Too Much Too Young' addressed teenage pregnancy and domestic responsibility with the sort of directness that guaranteed controversy, while 'Nite Klub' painted a less-than-glamorous picture of British nightlife. The songs were observations of the world around them, often delivered by musicians who were barely out of their teens themselves.

At the end of January 1980, a live recording of 'Too Much Too Young', taken from 'The Special AKA Live!' EP, reached Number One. The success demonstrated how far the 2 Tone movement had travelled in such a short period, although the sudden popularity created expectations that were increasingly difficult to manage.

The Specials were touring constantly, their concerts frequently attracted enormous stage invasions, and confrontations involving rival groups within audiences became a recurring problem. The unity represented by the label's black-and-white imagery was not always reflected in the behaviour of everybody attending its concerts.

Meanwhile, Dammers was becoming interested in pushing the band beyond the ska sound that had made them famous. Their second album, 'More Specials', arrived in October 1980 and incorporated lounge music, jazz, film soundtracks and more experimental arrangements. Songs such as 'Stereotypes', 'Do Nothing' and 'International Jet Set' demonstrated a growing interest in musical styles that some of the other members were less enthusiastic about pursuing.

The arguments became increasingly frequent. Roddy Radiation preferred a more direct approach, while others were frustrated by Dammers' attempts to control the band's musical direction. What had once been a group of young musicians enjoying the excitement of their sudden success was becoming an increasingly unhappy working environment.

There were more serious problems outside the band. Lynval Golding suffered a violent racist attack in London during 1980, leaving him seriously injured and hospitalised. The incident would inspire 'Why?', a song that became particularly important when The Specials returned to the recording studio the following year.

By the beginning of 1981, the band were exhausted, divided and facing uncertainty over whether they could continue working together. Yet Dammers was preparing the song that would become their greatest achievement.

A Country Becoming a Ghost Town

Britain entered the 1980s in considerable economic difficulty. Inflation, industrial disputes and rising unemployment had already been major problems during the previous decade, while the recession that followed the arrival of Margaret Thatcher's Conservative government in 1979 placed further pressure on manufacturing communities.

By early 1981, unemployment had risen beyond 2.5 million. Factories were closing, established industries were declining, and many younger people faced particularly limited employment opportunities. For towns and cities whose identities had been built around manufacturing, the consequences were visible in empty shops, abandoned buildings and streets where businesses had once provided jobs for entire families.

Music was becoming an increasingly important outlet for the frustration felt across the country. Paul Weller and The Jam were already addressing social division and political disillusionment through records such as 'Going Underground', while other musicians were finding different ways to respond to the changing circumstances. I've explored that wider movement, including the work of The Jam and The Style Council, in my feature 'Walls Come Tumbling Down: The 80s Part 3'.

The Specials encountered these changes while touring Britain. Dammers later recalled travelling through Liverpool and seeing boarded-up shops and businesses that had closed. Glasgow made a particularly strong impression on him, where he remembered elderly women selling household possessions on the street. The effects of economic decline were no longer confined to statistics in newspapers. They were visible in the places the band visited every night.

Those experiences helped shape 'Ghost Town'. Dammers had been developing the song for some time, combining observations of unemployment and urban decay with the violence increasingly associated with the band's concerts. The lyrics reflected both a country struggling economically and a group whose own attempts to bring people together were being undermined by conflict.

Dammers concentrated on the places people knew, the clubs that were closing, the lack of work and the disappearance of the things that had once made their communities feel alive. The song's references to fighting on the dancefloor were also drawn from the increasingly violent atmosphere surrounding some of The Specials' performances.

Only two years earlier, the band had been one of the most exciting and energetic acts in Britain, playing music that encouraged entire rooms to dance. Now they were preparing a record that sounded as though the party was over.

Recording 'Ghost Town'

In March 1981, Dammers contacted producer John Collins after hearing 'At the Club', a reggae record he had made with Victor Romero Evans. Collins had developed his sound through relatively modest recording equipment at home in Tottenham, and his approach appealed to Dammers, who had become frustrated with the elaborate studio techniques used during the making of 'More Specials'.

The band travelled to Woodbine Street Recording Studios in Royal Leamington Spa the following month. It was a small eight-track studio, operating on a fraction of the scale of the facilities The Specials had previously used. Collins had been brought in to produce three songs for a new single: 'Ghost Town', 'Why?' and 'Friday Night, Saturday Morning'.

The recording arrangements were unusual for a band accustomed to performing together. There wasn't enough space for everybody to play simultaneously, so Collins constructed the tracks gradually, recording individual instruments and building up the arrangements.

Collins wanted the rhythm section to sound closer to Jamaican reggae than conventional rock music. He asked John Bradbury to strip his drum kit back to a bass drum, snare and hi-hat, while Horace Panter plugged his bass directly into the mixing desk. Taking inspiration from the Jamaican rhythm section Sly and Robbie, Collins built the recording around a sparse arrangement that left room for Dammers' organ and the brass instruments.

It was a considerably different approach from the band's previous recording sessions. Bradbury and Panter provided the foundation, while rhythm guitar and a guide organ were added before the remaining instruments. Dammers overdubbed a two-handed shuffle on a Hammond organ, giving the recording much of its distinctive movement.

The smaller studio didn't improve relations within the group. Communication had almost completely broken down, and the sessions were marked by arguments and frustration. Dammers had worked out the song's individual parts in considerable detail, but persuading the other musicians to follow his arrangements became increasingly difficult.

At one point, Roddy Radiation became so frustrated that he kicked at the studio interior, angering engineer John Rivers. Dammers was convinced that the band were recording something exceptional, although maintaining any sense of collective enthusiasm must have been difficult when the musicians responsible for playing it were struggling to remain in the same room.

Bradbury's restrained drumming and Panter's bass created a hypnotic reggae rhythm, while Dammers' organ moved through an unsettling series of chords. The brass arrangements, featuring Rico Rodriguez and Dick Cuthell, added an almost cinematic quality, with the mournful trombone and trumpet sounding unlike anything else in the British charts.

Collins took the recordings back to his home in Tottenham, where he spent the following three weeks mixing and editing the material. The famous ghostly sound that opens the record was created using a Transcendent 2000 synthesiser he had assembled himself. He also used echo, reverb and other production techniques borrowed from Jamaican dub, allowing individual instruments and vocal passages to appear and disappear throughout the arrangement.

Without an automated mixing desk, Collins mixed different sections separately and physically joined pieces of quarter-inch tape together. He also had to decide which parts of the recording would appear on the different versions of the single. The extended twelve-inch release retained Rico Rodriguez's trombone solo, which was omitted from the shorter seven-inch version.

Other material was removed completely, including a section of Terry Hall performing reggae-style toasting. Collins felt the song worked better without it, allowing the instrumental passages and increasingly repetitive backing vocals to carry the atmosphere.

The vocals were particularly important. Hall's understated delivery suited the bleak arrangement, while the backing voices created an increasingly insistent refrain. Rather than building towards a conventional pop chorus, the recording seemed to move in circles, returning repeatedly to the same unsettling image of a town losing the things that had once sustained it.

Collins' first-hand account of recording 'Ghost Town' provides a fascinating insight into the sessions, particularly the way he constructed the finished recording using such limited equipment.

Listening to 'Ghost Town' now, I'm still struck by how different it sounds from the band's earlier records. You can hear the foundations of 2 Tone throughout, but the pace is slower, the arrangements are more adventurous, and the sense of enjoyment that characterised so much of their music has largely disappeared. The Specials had created something that was recognisably theirs while sounding unlike anything they had previously released.

Three Songs, One Picture of Britain

The songs that accompany 'Ghost Town' on the single are every bit as important to understanding the period in which it was made.

Lynval Golding's 'Why?' was written in response to the racist attack he had suffered the previous year. It confronted prejudice with the directness that had always been central to The Specials, although the circumstances behind the song gave it an additional personal significance. Golding wasn't commenting on something he had only read about or witnessed happening to somebody else. He was describing violence he had experienced himself.

The other song, Terry Hall's 'Friday Night, Saturday Morning', explored a more ordinary form of dissatisfaction. It followed a disappointing night out, with the familiar routine of pubs, clubs and the journey home offering little excitement or escape. Hall's dry delivery made the song both funny and rather depressing, capturing the feeling of looking forward to the weekend only to discover that there wasn't much to look forward to.

Taken together, the three recordings offered different perspectives on Britain at the beginning of the 1980s. 'Ghost Town' addressed the decline of communities and opportunities, 'Why?' confronted racism, and 'Friday Night, Saturday Morning' found frustration in the ordinary routines of working-class life.

The band's relationships were deteriorating, yet they were still capable of producing three songs that approached the same period from very different directions. Each offered an observation about life in Britain, from the violence experienced by Golding to the empty nights out described by Hall and the economic decline that had troubled Dammers.

1981: A Country on the Brink

'Ghost Town' was released on 12 June 1981. By then, Britain was already experiencing serious social unrest, although the events of the following weeks would make the song's timing seem almost impossible.

In April, rioting had broken out in Brixton, south London, following years of tension between the police and the local Black community. Police stop-and-search practices were central to those grievances, with Operation Swamp 81 having involved intensive police activity in the area shortly before the disturbances.

The events in Brixton prompted an official inquiry led by Lord Scarman, but the underlying problems were hardly confined to one part of London. Unemployment, poor housing, racial discrimination and distrust of the police were affecting communities in other British cities, with those tensions increasingly visible during the summer.

On 3 July, serious disturbances began in Liverpool's Toxteth district following a confrontation involving police and a young Black man. The violence escalated over the following days, with burning vehicles, damaged buildings and prolonged clashes between police and residents. CS gas was deployed by police on mainland Britain during the disturbances, an extraordinary development that demonstrated the seriousness of the situation.

Further unrest followed in Moss Side in Manchester, Handsworth in Birmingham, Chapeltown in Leeds and other areas. Although the circumstances differed between communities, the events exposed the extent of the problems facing parts of urban Britain.

Meanwhile, 'Ghost Town' was climbing the charts. It entered the UK Singles Chart in June and reached Number One in early July 1981, remaining there for three weeks.

A record written months earlier about unemployment, social division and growing frustration had become the country's biggest song at precisely the moment those subjects were dominating television news and newspaper headlines.

It wasn't that 'Ghost Town' had predicted the unrest. The conditions described in the song had been developing for years, and Dammers had encountered them while travelling around the country. What made the record so unusual was the way those observations appeared to describe events unfolding almost in real time.

The official music video added another memorable dimension. Directed by Barney Bubbles, it showed the band travelling around deserted London streets in a Vauxhall Cresta, passing through the Rotherhithe Tunnel and other parts of the capital before appearing beside the River Thames. The empty roads and buildings complemented the atmosphere of the song, even though much of the footage had been filmed during the quiet hours of a weekend morning.

The production wasn't without its problems. Horace Panter later recalled that a camera attached to the bonnet of the borrowed car fell off during filming, damaging the paintwork. It was hardly the sort of elaborate production associated with major pop videos, but the images worked perfectly with the atmosphere of the music.

Watching those images alongside the contemporary news coverage is deeply unsettling. The band appear in a city largely emptied of people, while the newspapers of July 1981 were filled with photographs of streets occupied by crowds, police officers and burning vehicles. Both presented different pictures of a country experiencing considerable upheaval.

'Ghost Town' finished twelfth on the Official Charts Company's revised list of the biggest-selling singles of 1981. I've also included it in my feature on the greatest UK Number One singles, alongside other records that captured significant moments in British music history. The chart position was impressive, but the circumstances surrounding its success are the reason 'Ghost Town' has become so closely associated with that particular summer.

Top of the Pops and the End of The Specials

The Specials appeared on 'Top of the Pops' on 2 July 1981, when 'Ghost Town' was at Number Two, and returned the following week after the single reached the top of the charts.

Their performance on 9 July has become one of the most fascinating television appearances in the band's history. The group were dressed in their familiar dark clothing, with the stage lighting and unusual arrangement giving the performance an almost theatrical quality. Terry Hall delivered the song with his characteristic detachment, while the other musicians played around him.

To anybody watching at home, it might have seemed like another successful appearance by one of Britain's most popular bands. Behind the scenes, however, the situation was considerably less celebratory.

The divisions within The Specials had become almost impossible to repair. Dammers' determination to explore new musical directions had created repeated disagreements, while the pressure of constant touring and the difficulties surrounding their concerts had left several members wanting to pursue something different.

Backstage during the Number One 'Top of the Pops' appearance, Terry Hall, Lynval Golding and Neville Staple informed the others that they intended to leave the group. Dammers was devastated. Having spent months trying to persuade the band to record 'Ghost Town', he had finally seen it reach Number One, only to discover that the achievement would not be enough to keep them together.

Hall, Golding and Staple went on to form Fun Boy Three, enjoying considerable success throughout the early 1980s. Dammers continued working under the Special AKA name, eventually releasing 'In the Studio' in 1984, which included the anti-apartheid anthem 'Nelson Mandela'.

The classic seven-piece line-up would never make another record together. In little more than two years, they had released two studio albums, enjoyed seven consecutive Top Ten singles and helped establish one of the most influential movements in British popular music.

The Legacy of 'Ghost Town'

The influence of The Specials extended far beyond their original career. The 2 Tone movement introduced Jamaican ska to a new generation of British listeners, combining it with the energy of punk and songwriting that addressed the problems facing the country. Its black-and-white chequerboard, Walt Jabsco and distinctive clothing became symbols in their own right. At a time of considerable racial tension, the sight of Black and white musicians sharing a stage carried a significance that extended well beyond the music.

More than four decades after its release, 'Ghost Town' remains one of the most remarkable records in British music history. It is often described as the soundtrack to Thatcher's Britain, which is understandable, although that description risks reducing such an inventive piece of music to a straightforward political statement. Dammers wrote about the closing clubs, disappearing jobs and growing tensions he had witnessed while touring, while the eerie organ, mournful brass and dub production gave those observations an atmosphere unlike anything else in the charts.

What has always struck me about 'Ghost Town' is how closely the circumstances surrounding its creation reflected the country it was describing. The Specials weren't looking back on the unrest of 1981 with the benefit of hindsight. They were experiencing those divisions themselves, dealing with racism, violence at their concerts and increasingly difficult relationships within the band. By the time the record reached Number One, riots were spreading across Britain and the group responsible for recording it was falling apart.

On 9 July 1981, The Specials appeared on 'Top of the Pops' with the biggest single in Britain. It should have been the moment that confirmed everything they had achieved since emerging from Coventry just a few years earlier. Instead, it marked the end of the original band.

They had spent two years bringing people together through 2 Tone, but by the time they reached the top of the charts, they could no longer hold their own band together.