Review:

on 2011-06-26 CharlesMartel Said:

If ever anyone tells you that songs do not have any direct influence on events, then you can run this one past them. Urban legend has it that Ghost Town was the spark which lit the inner city riots of the summer of 1981 and came as close as anything to bringing down the regime of Margaret Thatcher and her monetarist henchmen.

The song is about the decline of the inner cities of the UK as vibrant places, places where people thrived with a culture and an identity of their own. Many cities have claimed it was written about them, but Coventry probably holds the best claim to that. Whatever. The name of the city is irrelevant, it is the message which is important here.

Thatcher's ruinous policies had replaced all that with mass unemployment, youth disaffection and a clampdown on crime which ended up targeting the black population. Frustration built up within the youth who saw any prospects of anything disappear down a monetarist drain, a fact alluded to in the "too much fighting on the dancefloor" line. When it exploded, it exploded big time.

The song has a deliberately creepy production, intended to emphasise the spookiness of the title. The vocals are delivered as close to without any emotion as Terry Hall could muster, emphasising the lack of life of which he was singing. The combination of these factors is what makes this such a great track. I hope it plays in Thatcher's nightmares to this day.
Rating: 8/10