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Ghost towns 1981-2021
With the 40th anniversary re-release of the classic commentary on a Britain broken by callous neoliberalism, KEITH FLETT asks if anything really changed

JUNE 2021 marks the 40th anniversary of the release of the Specials single Ghost Town. It went on to spend three weeks at Number One in the charts in the summer of 1981.

Recorded in Leamington Spa and produced in Tottenham, the single is now part of social history capturing the disaffection and impact of the first years of the 1979 Thatcher government.

It has been re-released to mark the anniversary but its significance goes far wider than the music charts. It speaks to an experience of particularly younger people under a Tory government that is not so different in 2020 despite the passage of four decades.

The 95th Anniversary Appeal
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