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Ghost Town (The Specials song)

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This article is about the song by The Specials. For other uses, see Ghost town (disambiguation).
"Ghost Town"
Song
B-side"Why?"; "Friday Night, Saturday Morning"

"Ghost Town" is the title of a 1981 song by the British ska band, The Specials. The song spent three weeks at number one and ten weeks in the top 40 of the UK Singles Chart overall. The song addresses urban decay, deindustrialisation, unemployment and violence in inner cities in the United Kingdom. The song is remembered for being a hit at the same time as riots were occurring in British cities and as such is remembered as a major piece of popular social commentary.

Composition

In Autumn 1980, during the More Specials tour, the band arrived in Glasgow for a performance. The song was inspired by the sight of elderly women selling their possessions on the Glasgow streets. Jerry Dammers said: "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."[1] The recording of the three songs on the single lasted 10 days. Dammers explained the composition:

"The overall sense I wanted to convey was impending doom. There were weird, diminished chords: certain members of the band resented the song and wanted the simple chords they were used to playing on the first album. It's hard to explain how powerful it sounded. We had almost been written off and then 'Ghost Town' came out of the blue."[2]

In March 1981, Jerry Dammers asked John Collins, an unknown producer whom he admired for his work on the recently popular reggae track "At the Club" by Babylon actor Victor Romero Evans, to produce the band's next single. After bad experiences with high-tech studios provided by major labels, Dammers chose the small-scaled Woodbine Street Recording Studios in Leamington Spa to record with Collins.

In the studio, "Ghost Town" was recorded by building up tracks on a 8-track, rather than recording the band live together. Collins and drummer John Bradbury were influenced by "What a Feeling" by Gregory Isaacs when recording the drum track. The recording of backing vocals was unplanned and the lack of technology to sample voices meant the four singers in the band had to sing a full vocal track all the way through, causing the lyric "this town is coming like a ghost town" to become like an "hypnotic chant". After mixing the track for three weeks, Collins recreated an idea of fading in over a sound effect which he had used previously on "Lift Off", the B-side of "At The Club". To achieve the effect he wanted, Collins utilised a Transcendent 2000 synthesiser to create a "ghost" sound, which he used to fade in and out at the beginning and end of the track.[3]

Lyrics

The song addresses urban decay, unemployment and violence in inner cities. The club referred to in the lines "All the clubs are being closed down" and "Too much fighting on the dance floor" was The Locarno, run by Mecca Leisure Group and later renamed Tiffanys, which was also the club setting the scene for the b-side song, "Friday Night Saturday Morning". It is now Coventry Central Library.[4]

The song spent three weeks at number one and ten weeks in the top 40 of the UK Singles Chart overall. The track was recorded at the Woodbine Street Recording Studios in Leamington Spa, Warwickshire. The video of consisted of the band driving a Vauxhall Cresta around some empty London streets.

Impact

Contemporary reviews identified the song's impact as a "instant musical editorial" on recent events.[5][6] Hall said: "When we recorded 'Ghost Town,' we were talking about [1980]'s riots in Bristol and Brixton. "The fact that it became popular when it did was just a weird coincidence."[7]

The summer of 1981 saw riots in over 35 locations around the UK.[1] The song created resentment in Coventry where residents angrily rejected the characterisation of the town as a town in decline.[2]

Track listing

1981 release

  • 2 Tone CHS TT17 7" [8]
  1. "Ghost Town" (Dammers) - 3:40
  2. "Why?" (Golding) - 2:59
  3. "Friday Night, Saturday Morning" (Hall) - 3:32
  • 2 Tone CHS TT1217 12" [9]
  1. "Ghost Town (Extended Version)" - 6:02
  2. "Why? (Extended Version)" - 3:55
  3. "Friday Night, Saturday Morning" - 3:32

1991 re-release

  • 2 Tone CHS TT30 7" (Ghost Town Revisited) [10]
  1. "Ghost Town" - 3:40
  2. "Ghost Dub '91" - 4:19

Chart positions

Chart Peak
position
UK Singles Chart [11] 1
Irish Singles Chart [12] 3
Norwegian Singles Chart 7
Netherlands Singles Chart 12[13]

References

  1. ^ a b "Ska for the madding crowd". The Guardian. 8 March 2002. Retrieved 17 June 2011. {{cite news}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
  2. ^ a b "Ghost Town: The song that defined an era turns 30". The Independent. 3 July 2011. Retrieved 8 August 2011. {{cite news}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
  3. ^ http://www.localrecords.com/ghost_town.htm
  4. ^ Barton, Laura (19 May 2009). "Barton's Britain: Coventry". The Guardian. Retrieved 30 January 2011.
  5. ^ "Pop Beat", Los Angeles Times, August 15 1981
  6. ^ http://www.billboard.biz/bbbiz/others/ghost-town-why-friday-night-saturday-morning-928967.story
  7. ^ Palmer, Robert (12 August 1981). "The Pop Life". The New York Times. Retrieved 8 August 2011. {{cite news}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
  8. ^ http://2-tone.info/2tone.pl?show112& 2Tone Discography "Ghost Town" release details
  9. ^ http://2-tone.info/2tone.pl?display219 2Tone Discography "Ghost Town" 12 Inch release details
  10. ^ http://2-tone.info/2tone.pl?show125& 2Tone Discography "Ghost Town Revisited" release details
  11. ^ http://www.chartstats.com/songinfo.php?id=9432 chartstats.com "Ghost Town" chart log
  12. ^ http://www.irishcharts.ie/ Irish singles chart placings
  13. ^ Norwegian & Dutch Chart Positions @ finnishcharts.com. Retrieved July 2009.
Preceded by UK number one single
11 July 1981 - 25 July 1981 		Succeeded by

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