Has a grimmer ode to post-industrial decay ever reached number one? After 10 days in a small studio in Leamington Spa ‘Ghost Town’ was born.įilled with eerie diminished chords and ghostly wailing the song merely hints at the full political turmoil that was polarising the UK at the time, but mere mentions of night clubs closing down and ‘no jobs to be found in this country’ instantly connected to young people, not just from Coventry but across the whole nation. By ’81 the rioting had spread to 35 locations across the nation, and when bandleader and keyboardist Jerry Dammers saw elderly women selling their possessions on the Glasgow streets he knew that “something was very, very wrong”. The previous summer had seen rioting in Brixton and Bristol. Yet none encapsulated the sense of seemingly endless decline that gripped the country at the end of the ‘70s like ‘Ghost Town’.īy 1981 Margaret Thatcher’s divisive Tory government had been in power for two years.

Teenage pregnancy (‘Too Much Too Young’), inner city violence and racism (‘Why’) and urban deprivation (‘Concrete Jungle’) all made appearances along with some deeply catchy singles. Like many of the acts featured on The People’s Songs, The Specials – the band who masterminded this ska revival – were heavily politicised: their material addressing the weighty topics of the time that were affecting Britain’s youth.

Ghost town song