Concrete Jungle
Christopher Jones
Assistant Producer
The above title is taken from a song written by Jerry Dammers, founder of The Specials. It's taken from their first album and it describes perfectly how the end of the ‘70s felt to a young person growing up in the West Midlands. I should know: I was there.
In fact, this week’s episode of The People’s Songs - Ghost Town - Post-Industrial Decline - represents a truly personal experience for this particular listener. I grew up in the ‘concrete jungle’ of Coventry, went to the same school as Dammers and (my one and only claim to fame) my punk band at the time was supported at our last gig by none other than The Automatics. Previously known as The Coventry Automatics, they were a band that were soon to change their name to… guess what? Yes, The Specials.
They blew us offstage.
My teenage years, spent in Coventry, ended when I finally left for London in 1979, just as the unthinkable happened – my hometown for a short while became the centre of the musical universe due to one thing – the 2 Tone label, home of The Specials. Great timing, although perhaps on reflection it was in the cards that night at The General Wolfe pub when my second rate group (saddled with the terrible name of Urban Blight) were shown the door by Dammers and his ska band.
I remember thinking at the time: “Hold on, this is SKINHEAD music, what’s going on?” Coventry wasn’t just the heart of a car industry that had been decimated by union wrangles and a faltering economy but it was a truly multi-ethnic city that had been riven with racism and inner city violence. A Saturday night out in the precinct could easily end in bloodshed in those days.
Here’s contributor Angie’s take on how the city was at that time:
Contributor Angie talks about how Coventry was exactly as it was described in Ghost Town
But it was obvious, even that night, that the adoption of a musical form that combined both the black and white aspects of life in a post-industrial town was a stroke of genius. Punk had been a primarily white music, played by middle class boys pretending to be angry, but finally acknowledging the grimness of the times via true social realism (and danceability) sealed Dammers and Co.’s place in history.
2 Tone (whose stable included Camden’s Madness as well as another Coventry act: The Selecter) gave a voice to the next generation who had grown up in a world where the chances of getting a job were getting smaller by the day and who were ripe for recruitment by far right organisations such as The National Front.
Here’s Colin talking about that particular aspect:
Contributor Colin talks about the political statement behind The Specials' number one
But matching an essentially ‘good-time’ genre like ska – reggae’s precursor – and welding it to socially responsible lyric writing meant that 2 Tone came to represent something far more positive. From the post-industrial ruins of provincial Britain came something that truly reflected our times.
The real message behind a record like 'Ghost Town' was that we were all together in this mess and that maybe it was a better idea to blame the causes and not just fight amongst ourselves. It may have been the most depressing number one of all time, but it was followed by a new era of political engagement for young people including the Anti-Nazi League and even a resurgence of CND.
And it made me forever proud to have come from a town like Coventry.
