Irish Examiner view: Timeless message of a great song

Terry Hall from The Specials during the filming for the Graham Norton Show.

The death of Terry Hall, lead singer with The Colour Field, Fun Boy Three, and The Specials, may strike a chord with a particular generation of readers — specifically those who came of age in the late 70s and early 80s, when Hall was a central figure in the popular music of the time.

Though the Coventry native had a long career in music, he will probably be best remembered for his singing on the evocative ‘Ghost Town’, a number one hit for The Specials in 1981.

Its chilly, mesmerising sound resonates even now, over 40 years on, and the underlying message, unfortunately, has not dated either. Hall and his bandmates wrote the song after touring Britain in the middle of an unemployment crisis, and they reflected what they had seen on the road.

The ominous atmosphere evoked by ‘Ghost Town’ flared into violence the summer it reached number one, as riots erupted in inner cities across Britain.

The song later enjoyed a renaissance on streaming platforms during the worldwide lockdown, but its power truly derives from its original context. Hall and his bandmates encapsulated the world view of a generation in three minutes of music which, from the opening bars, can plunge the listener back to a time of limited horizons and deep frustration.

When Noel Coward said it was extraordinary how potent cheap music was he might have been describing the effect of those first few organ notes of ‘Ghost Town’. Much of the song’s message of alienation and despair is as applicable now as it was in the summer of 1981, but that is also a testament to its timelessness.