“Ghost Town” by The Specials

"Ghost Town", released on 2 Tone on 12 June 1981, is Jerry Dammers' portrait of Britain coming apart at the seams: urban decay, shuttered industry, the dole queue and violence in the inner cities. The Specials play it as a slow, eerie dirge that sounds like the wind whistling through boarded-up shops.

The timing was uncanny. The single was a hit just as riots broke out in British cities, holding the top spot for three weeks and hanging around the UK top 40 for 11, and it ended up the 12th best-selling single of the year. Tensions inside the band were boiling over during the sessions, and it was the last single the original seven members recorded before they split. The UK music press hailed it as social commentary of the first order, and all three major music papers named it their Single of the Year for 1981.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.