roots
The Specials - Ghost Town
One of the best songs ever written, the extended version with the horn solo is just magic.
Listen here
Early 1980's. I would have been about nine, sitting in the back of mum's Ford Cortina at the traffic lights outside the Odeon. Coventry were playing at home. This song was on the radio as I was watching two hooligans kicking the crap out of a bloke in the middle of the road. Mum was so worried that when we got home she rang around the hospitals to see if he was ok. She was too scared to get out of the car, understandably.
CREDIT: Hummel, 2019
Coventry City F.C, 2019/2020 Third Kit. Dedicated to the Specials and the Selecters revival of Ska during the Thatcher era. The black and white ‘two tone’ image represents fighting racism and promoting racial unity.
At nine, I didn't understand what the song meant or that it was written about Coventry by a band from Coventry, I just thought is was a good tune. It was a time of high unemployment as also depicted in the UB40 song, One in Ten. No one had anything and there was a real social unease in the air.
The song brings all of that back. I picture walking through town, past the Dog and Trumpet, Grandma gripping my hand tightly as we walked past the punks, with their magnificent Mohawks and painted leather jackets, and skin heads in Doc Martens and Fred Perry polo shirts. She was way more nervous than I was, no punk would risk messing up that hair.
It reminds me of friends Gene, Paul and Anthony. We were tight back then. Always out, always up to no good, catching the number 15 bus into town, just because.
Because of my parental situation, my brothers and I were feral. One of the things we would do is go to the train station and see how far we could get with a 2p platform ticket. Most of the time it was to Birmingham New Street. Once we got to Leeds. We never got caught. It reminds me of a time we had nothing, didn't need or want anything. We were happy. Before everything went pear shaped. Great times.
It’s strange to think about how different things might have been without ‘Ghost Town’, I guess it would be music’s loss. Much of my childhood is connected to this song; the place, the people, the feeling at that time. Perhaps my life would have taken a completely different shape and my appreciation for music would be different. A parallel version of me, into different things, living a different life.
