The Specials - Ghost Town: Blog tasks

 Background and historical contexts

1) Why does the writer link the song to cinematic soundtracks and music hall tradition?

Formed in 1977 and arguably the most influential band of the UK’s 2 Tone Ska scene, “Ghost Town”, a skewed ska oddity, was written by Jerry Dammers, The Specials’ keyboardist and released in June 1981. It was their last song before splitting up and reforming as The Special AKA and stayed at the top of the UK charts for three weeks.

It’s an odd, eerie song, nodding to pop convention and sitting wilfully outside of it. It’s included, in passing, in Dorian Lynskey’s beautifully written book on protest songs, “33 Revolutions Per Minute”, but unlike the band’s “Free Nelson Mandela” does not merit its own chapter.

Perhaps because “Ghost Town” cannot be “placed”. It’s not explicitly against any one event. It does not exhort its listeners into any one particular political view. It is not part of any one social movement for change. It is, rather, a stealth protest song. 

Starting with a Hammond organ’s six ascending notes before a mournful flute solo, it paints a bleak aural and lyrical landscape. Written in E♭, more attuned to “mood music”, with nods to cinematic soundtracks and music hall tradition, it reflects and engenders anxiety. 

The whispered chorus of “This Town/ is coming like a Ghost town” is then heard, followed by front man Terry Hall’s deadpan vocals lamenting how “all the clubs have been closed down” because there is “too much fighting on the dance floor”.

2) What subcultures did 2 Tone emerge from in the late 1970s?

2 Tone had emerged stylistically from the Mod and Punk subcultures and its musical roots and the people in it, audiences and bands, were both black and white. Ska and the related Jamaican Rocksteady were its musical foundations, sharpened further by punk attitude and anger. It was this anger that Dammers articulated in “Ghost Town”, galvanised both what he had seen on tour around the UK in 1981 and what was happening in the band, which was riven by internal tensions.

3) What social contexts are discussed regarding the UK in 1981?

England was hit by recession and away from rural Skinhead nights, riots were breaking out across its urban areas. Deprived, forgotten, run down and angry, these were places where young people, black and white, erupted. In these neglected parts of London, Birmingham, Leeds and Liverpool the young, the unemployed, and the disaffected fought pitch battles with the police. 

“Ghost Town” was the mournful sound of these riots, a poetic protest. It articulates anger at a state structure, an economic system and an entrenched animosity towards the young, black, white and poor. It asks, why must the youth fight against themselves.

4) Cultural critic Mark Fisher describes the video as ‘eerie’. What do you think is 'eerie' about the Ghost Town video?

The hypnotic chanting of the line “this town is coming like a ghost town” expresses a nightmarish vision of the world and the wailing chorus suggests we should be incredibly frightened by the prospect of this dystopian future. The lyric “can’t go on no more” is particularly sombre.

5) Look at the final section (‘Not a dance track’). What does the writer suggest might be the meanings created in the video? Do you agree?

So what did those fight-ready Skinheads do in those small town discos when “Ghost Town” came on? Not moonstomping, not smooching. This was not a dance track. It wasn’t the “romantic” one the DJ played at the end of the night. 

When “Ghost Town” played, the Skinheads sang along with Terry Hall, smiled manically and screeched. They joined into to the “ghastly chorus” and became, for a few minutes, part of that army of spectres. Because protest sometimes has no words. 

It’s just a cry out against injustice, against closed off opportunities by those who have pulled the ladder up and robbed the young, the poor, the white and black of their songs and their dancing, their futures. Drive round an empty city at dawn. Look at the empty flats. 

See the streets before the bankers get there and after the cleaning ladies have gone. And put young, poor, disadvantaged people in that car. See how “Ghost Town” makes sense. Now.

Protest music has made a serious comeback over the past five years. This article is the first in a series featuring Songs of Protest from across the world, genres and generations.

Now read this BBC website feature on the 30th anniversary of Ghost Town’s release. 

1) How does the article describe the song?

It starts with a siren and those woozy, lurching organ chords. Then comes the haunted, spectral woodwind, punctuated by blaring brass. Over a sparse reggae bass line, a West Indian vocal mutters warnings of urban decay, unemployment and violence."No job to be found in this country," one voice cries out. "The people getting angry," booms another, ominously. Few songs evoke their era like the Specials' classic Ghost Town, a depiction of social breakdown that provided the soundtrack to an explosion of civil unrest. 

2) What does the article say about the social context of the time – what was happening in Britain in 1981?

Released on 20 June 1981 against a backdrop of rising unemployment, its blend of melancholy, unease and menace took on an entirely new meaning when Britain's streets erupted into rioting almost three weeks later - the day before Ghost Town reached number one in the charts.  The song's much-celebrated video - in which the band, crammed into a Vauxhall Cresta, patrol empty, crumbling streets - seems unlikely promotional material for a hit single.by 1981, industrial decline had left the city suffering badly. Unemployment was among the highest in the UK.

"When I think about Ghost Town I think about Coventry," says Specials drummer John Bradbury, who grew up in the city.  "I saw it develop from a boom town, my family doing very well, through to the collapse of the industry and the bottom falling out of family life. Your economy is destroyed and, to me, that's what Ghost Town is about."

3) How did The Specials reflect an increasingly multicultural Britain?

With a mix of black and white members, The Specials, too, encapsulated Britain's burgeoning multiculturalism. The band's 2 Tone record label gave its name to a genre which fused ska, reggae and new wave and, in turn, inspired a crisply attired youth movement.But, as a consequence, Specials gigs began to attract the hostile presence of groups like the National Front and the British Movement. When vocalist Neville Staple sighed wearily on Ghost Town that there was "too much fighting on the dance floor", he sang from personal experience. 

The violence came even closer to home when guitarist Lynval Golding was badly hurt in a brutal racist attack - an incident documented in Ghost Town's bewildered B-side, Why? As their popularity grew, the band's tours of the UK took them around a country shaken by rising joblessness. Dammers has cited the sight of elderly women in Glasgow selling their household possessions on the street as the song's inspiration. But it was not only economic hardship, industrial dereliction and racial unrest that imbued Ghost Town with paranoia and tension. By the time it was recorded, The Specials were riven by acrimony and distrust. Following their appearance on Top of the Pops to promote the single, frontmen Terry Hall and Neville Staple walked out of the group along with Golding. 

4) How can we link Paul Gilroy’s theories to The Specials and Ghost Town?

The song and video offers evidence of Gilroy's Black Atlantic diasporic identity theory – that black culture is forged through travel and hybridity, a “liquidity of culture”.

5) The article discusses how the song sounds like a John Barry composition. Why was John Barry a famous composer and what films did he work on?

John Barry was one of the all-time great masters of movie music. His career spanned some 50 years - from Midnight Cowboy and Born Free to Dances with Wolves and Out of Africa - taking in 11 James Bond films along the way. The five-times Oscar winner was born in York on 3 November 1933.

Ghost Town - Media Factsheet

1) Focus on the Media Language section. What does the factsheet suggest regarding the mise-en-scene in the video? 

The mise-en-scene of the Ghost Town video uses the style of British social realist films. This genre is characterised by sympathetic representations of working-class men, the highlighting of bleak (often urban) environments and a sense of hopelessness. The video’s low-budget shoot, the social and political nature of the subject-matter of both video and song all reflect the codes and conventions of this film genre. The bleakness of the final shot where the band throw stones into the Thames is very powerful and nihilistic. This example gives you an idea of the look of these films for comparison.

2) How does the lighting create intertextual references? What else is notable about the lighting?

The mise-en-scene of Ghost Town also makes use of a visual style that borrows from expressionist cinema. (see example in image). In the car, the band are lit eerily by a limited interior light source and what looks like a handheld torch to light the faces of those in the back from a low angle. This is a highly effective low budget filmmaking technique suited to the aesthetic.The lighting design makes a virtue of available ‘natural’ sources, such as the harsh yellowy reflections of the lights in the tunnel on the windscreen as they pass over the band members, the grey skies and dark streets. It isn’t black and white, but it sometimes feels as though it is since the colours are so bleak and desaturated. There is cutting between day and night, dark and light, which is disorienting for the audience and plays with timeframe to

make the ‘ghost town’ feel as menacing by day as night. The Expressionist style featuring shadows, chiaroscuro lighting (sharp contrast between dark and light) contributes to this.

3) What non-verbal codes help to communicate meanings in the video?

The car is a Vauxhall Cresta, which signifies the importance of the 1960s to the two-tone culture that influenced both The Specials and other bands. This term was coined by a band member and described not just the multi-ethnic mix of band members but also the mixture of musical influences on them. The dress code reflects what working-class men both black and white might have worn on a night out clubbing. Non-verbal codes play a memorable role in contributing to the atmosphere of the video. The singing of the song with expressionless faces and direct mode-of-address with zombie-like, stiff body movements are suddenly relaxed in the manic middle section.

4) What does the factsheet suggest regarding the editing and camerawork? Pick out three key points that are highlighted here.

Editing is used to control the pace of the video and camerawork distorts our sense of day and night. One  scene is cut like an action sequence of a car chase. Both its style and short shot duration give a frenetic feel. This is reinforced by handheld, disorienting camerawork with whip pans and canted angles. The band are generally shot as a group, emphasising the relationship between them. Most of the shots are on-board travelling shots. Some are in the interior of the car, as seen in a previous example. This invites audience identification with the band. The sequence near the start consists of a series of establishing shots and low angle shots which make the scenery loom in an intimidating way. The video ends with superimposition of a long cross-dissolve of the tunnel lights to the stone-throwing shot, to unsettling effect.

5) What narrative theories can be applied to the video? Give details from the video for each one.

To apply Todorov’s theory to the video, we need to reflect on the narrative of the lyrics as well as the visual content of the video. The band setting off together looking for something to do, accompanied by the eerie diegetic sound and the green traffic light, an arbitrary sign that things are being set in motion. This could be seen as the bleakness and emptiness of the streets because, ‘Bands don’t play no more – too much fighting.on the dance floor’. Could be identified as the upbeat break in the middle of the song that contrasts times gone by with now: ‘We danced and sang, and the music played in de boomtown’. The is the continued aimless drive, the shadowy figures and ghostly conflicts Their bleak arrival at the river, having found nothing else to do.

Whose car are we in? Where are the band going? Why does everything seem to be shut

down? These include the car travelling from location to location.  Uses of these include the band being dressed smartly, connoting their intention to go out, and the car steering wildly connoting danger from an unseen presence. Include the contrast between past and present The lyrical references to historical/social contexts, such as joblessness and urban decay.

6) How can we apply genre theory to the video?

The performer or band appear in the video performing it in some way – this could be a literal performance or just one band member lip-synching. The video has an identifiable story, usually connected in some way with the lyrics (although not always).  There is a motif or idea that defines the visual style of the video – it may be abstract or more obviously connected with a symbolic code defined by the lyrics.

The video for Ghost Town is performative because it features a ‘performance’ by the band – they are singing the song together in the car. It is also narrative in that it has a simple premise that the group are looking for somewhere to go out but are thwarted and end up throwing stones into the river. There is a secure concept to the video, which is the journey and the eeriness of the location, the zombie-like appearance of the band. Neale’s approach to theorising genre tells us that genres hybridise. Ghost Town is an example of how music videos often borrow from different cultural reference points. As discussed, the visual aesthetic for Ghost Town draws strongly on two cinematic influences - expressionist cinema of the 1920s and the social realist mode of film-making that began in the 1960s. The musical genre of ska had strong links to the 1960s, when it became popular in the UK with the mod sub-culture. Two-tone culture had diverse influences as reggae, ska, and punk / new wave.

7) Now look at the Representations section. What are the different people, places and groups that are represented in the Ghost Town video? Look for the list on page 4 of the factsheet.

The video represents a number of different ideas, locations and groups including ‘Thatcher’s Britain’, the city, urban youth, race and masculinity. 

City - London

Urban Youth - early twenties

Race - mixed band members of black and white

Masculinity - in terms of their clothing, wearing suits; their fans followed this trend and made it their 'personality' to wear black and white suits even women

8) How can Gauntlett's work on collective identity be applied to the video?

Gauntlett suggests that media texts may offer us a sense of collective identity, by being an audience member and finding things in common with others via our shared tastes. In this sense the song and video nurture a sense of male collective identity, and shares the experience of trying to negotiate identity. This means that the text offers a place for men to see their problems being enacted and perhaps compare them with their own lives in what was a time of economic deprivation for many when many traditionally masculine jobs were disappearing.

9) How can gender theorists such as Judith Butler be applied to Ghost Town?

Judith Butler is a useful theorist to explore in relation to this text. Butler suggested that gender was not defined by the sex we are born with, but is a collection of behaviours by members of a biological sex often based on attitudes and expectations held by society. She referred to these as a ‘performance’. These musicians seem to be ‘performing’ the structures of patriarchy which include brotherhood, camaraderie and male solidarity. Butler also argued that unless the media could also begin to transgress, (or cross) boundaries in the way it represented gender, it is difficult for society also to lessen its reliance on gender stereotypes. This is because stereotypes circulate in the media as well as in society itself.

The total absence of women is a significant point in itself. Feminist theorists might argue that the video eclipses women’s own feelings of hopelessness. Perhaps the effect of unemployment on their realities, etc. are ignored in this text which frames these as exclusively male issues.

10) Postcolonial theorists like Paul Gilroy can help us to understand the meanings in the Ghost Town music video. What does the factsheet suggest regarding this?

Post-colonial theorists also use the idea of in-groups, who are the people who have power and influence in society and are often the greater number. Out-groups tend to have less power – they are perhaps fewer and/or more marginalised (made to feel powerless). The video challenges the notion of in-groups and out-groups by mixing ethnicities and focusing more on social class and the bonding potential of music.

Post-colonialists might argue that there is double consciousness (Gilroy) here. This term refers to the experience of being part of a black minority in a predominantly white culture, seeing black representations being constructed for white people from the outside with very little self-representation. Black musicians, as part of a music industry in the UK which was controlled by the white majority, had limited control in terms of self-representation and were often side-lined in bands which were multi-ethnic.