The Specials - Ghost Town: Blog tasks

Background and historical contexts

Read this excellent analysis from The Conversation website of the impact Ghost Town had both musically and visually. Answer the following questions

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

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.

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

Mod & Punk

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.

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

Nobody else is present in the large city - the band members are the only people there

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?

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.

I agree with this meaning as this is what Britain was like in the 1980's

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.

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.

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.

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

Paul Gilroy's Black Atlantic theory examines the interconnectedness of African diasporic cultures and their contributions to modernity. The Specials, a British ska revival band formed in the late 1970s, drew heavily from Jamaican ska and reggae music, which are significant components of the Black Atlantic cultural heritage. By incorporating these genres into their sound, The Specials engaged with the transnational Black experience and expressed solidarity with marginalised communities.

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?

"There's something frenzied and mad about that record," he says. "It has such a kaleidoscope of influences - jazz, (film score composer) John Barry, Middle Eastern music, a solid reggae undertone and stuff that sounds like nothing else.

Films:

Somewhere in Time

Out of Africa

Dances with Wolves


Ghost Town - Media Factsheet

Watch the video several times before reading Factsheet #211 - Ghost Town. You'll need your GHS Google login to access the factsheet. Once you have analysed the video several times and read the whole factsheet, answer the following questions: 

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.

3) What non-verbal codes help to communicate meanings in 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.

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.

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

Equilibrium - 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.

Disruption - 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’.

Recognition - 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’.

Attempt to repair - The is the continued aimless drive, the shadowy figures and ghostly conflicts encountered in the car chase style scenes. New equilibrium Their bleak arrival at the river, having found nothing else to do.

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

Performative - 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-syncing.

Narrative - The video has an identifiable story, usually connected in some way with the lyrics (although not always).

Concept-based - 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.

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.

• Thatcher’s Britain

• The City

• Urban youth

• Race

• Masculinity

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?

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.

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.