Wednesday Wadio: The Specials ‘Ghost Town’.

“This town, is coming like a ghost town
All the clubs have been closed down
This place, is coming like a ghost town
Bands won’t play no more
Too much fighting on the dance floor”

I knew who the Specials were, and I’d heard A Message to Rudy hundreds of times over many years with complete indifference. Although I was a fan of the Clash, and knew a lot about the whole ska scene via UB40-ish knock-offs and the musical guests on The Young Ones, I was completely unimpressed. Then one evening I was walking across Government Center in the dark with my new iPod on shuffle – and the opening mournful organ chords of Ghost Town started playing. I never saw the song the same way again.

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. It is now Coventry Central Library.

I had listened to it subconciously a dozen times – it features very prominently in one of my all time favorite movies, Snatch, for example – but honing in on one tune completely out of context can really give you a new appreciation for it. It can also be heard in Shaun of the Dead and a particular episode of Father Ted, when it is the only record a DJ remembers to bring to a church dance.

Ghost Town is my pentultimate ‘driving at night song’ and I subjected several carloads of people to it over the summer during road trips to the Cape and Canada. And usually with favorable results. It’s spooky, cool, multi-layered and catchy. It changes pace and pitch pretty wildly throughout and features a wide array of insturments as use of brass was one of The Specials, and really ska in general’s, trademarks.

The video makes them look like a bunch of complete dorks, but they were very popular during their day in England, and went on to form several sub-groups including Fun Boy Three. In fact, The Ghost Town EP was at number one in the British charts when the pressures within the band and the strains of touring finally resulted in their demise in 1981. “Ghost Town perfectly echoed the feelings in Britain at the time, and reached the number one spot in the charts to a backdrop of inner city riots in Liverpool.” I’ve read that Specials’ shows were plagued by violence, as can be explicated from the lyric snippet at the top of this article. This is especially odd, considering the fact that in the Ghost Town clip they make Depeche Mode look like John Wayne.

The Specials have a really comprehensive website with all kinds of interesting fanboy content. Friends and members of the band have gone to painstaking lengths to document the history, archive stories and provide audio and video clips. Watch the seminal Ghost Town video here and then click on through for more info.