Coventry was almost flattened by bombing in WWII due to it being the location of many factories producing armaments. The "church" is Coventry cathedral which was gutted by fire during the largest air raid. After the war it was decided to keep the ruins of the medieval structure and build a new modernist cathedral next to it as a symbol of rebirth after the horror of war. The juxtaposition is very beautiful, and reflects something of the character of the people of Coventry, tough and independent.
That's not just a church. That's Coventry Cathedral. It was bombed in the war. It was gutted out, but the outer walls are mostly there. So it's just been preserved like that and is sometimes used as an outside performance space.
There has always been a rivalry between Coventry and Birmingham. The skilled factory workers in Coventry referred to their counterparts in Birmingham as "metal bashers" and called a hammer a "Birmingham screwdriver".
I remember 1981 so vividly. I can remember my Dad driving me (as a ten year old) to gymnastics training and warning me to hunker down in the footwell of the car as we drove through Manchester. The youth were out on the streets and things were looking hairy. Every time I hear Ghost Town it comes flooding back. I still love this song though. It is one of the most original songs ever produced -absolute genius.
The young engineer John Rivers - at Woodbine Studios, now owns the Studio in 2024. "My Ding-a-ling" was recorded live...at Coventry Polytechnic. "Mouldy Old Dough" By Lieutenant Pigeon was recorded less than a mile away. Both where chart toppers either side of the Atlantic in 1972.
As it happens, that live version of My-Ding-A-Ling was recorded at the Locarno in Coventry... you know, the very nightspot Terry Hall was singing about. Small world.
This song. (Ahh ahh.) Had becoming of a ghost song. (Ahhh ah.) Bands don't play no more. (Bada da da da ta da.) Until Father Ted, that is. That show single-handedly, in one single eposide EXPLODED this song back into culture. For the few dozen people who made the crossover.
There is a British saying. “Being sent to Coventry” means no one talks to you. The saying is centuries old. Ironically it got very badly Bombed in WW2 despite the allies knowing it was going to happen. They didn’t evacuate the city as it would let the Germans know they had broken Enigma.
I saw the specials headline the Saturday night at boomtown fair in 2017, absolutely smashed it. ❤ And the church you saw at the beginning, had scaffolding all the way to the top of the spire, in 1998, me and two mates climbed it at 3am after a night out. Great times. 😂
The go-gos reunion was because they toured with the specials in the early 80s, Terry Hall & Jane Weidlin had a fling and ended up writing Our Lips are Sealed together, which was a hit for both the go-gos & fun boy three. Ghost Town was a state of the nation song which caught the mood of the times perfectly Also, an absolute banger.
My family are from Nuneaton, the absolute shit hole of a town next to Cov hahaa and my dad was a HUGEEEEE specials fan. He was a teenager in the 80s and him and my mum say theyre the soundtrack to their youth and they'd be out dancing to them every weekend❤. We grew up with them as kids ourselves on dads record player in the early 90s. Very nostalgic:).
Aah, Ghost Town, my late dogs favourite song to sing/howl along to 😂 A song that absolutely captured the mood at the time. ......and if you've never seen that live version of Chuck Berry's My Ding-a-ling - go find it now, it's hilarious.
I think this song means more to me now than when I first heard it on the radio as a kid, I'd have been 4 - so probably not consciouly when it 1st got a release, but it's just been played and sadly stayed relevant over the years. Think a bunch of us here have been waiting for you to get to this, it's such a special song - really glad you "get it" and understand the social context. It's one of those rare songs that would fit in, make sense and sound fresh if it came out today.
Madness is coming to my home, not even town but village!!!, Sharnbrook,(show me on a map) near the original Bedford, UK, in June next year. I already have tickets! I'm so excited!! Ill be able to just walk to it! I'm sure someone in these comments will understand how awesome this is 🎉🎉🎉😂
It predates that, if you missed the market in London the nearest was in Coventry, which is where it comes from as you didn't want to spend the slow journey to Coventry from London.
I've been waiting for you to get to Two Tone and The Specials. Love that you stuck with the Wiki entry for Coventry until you got to the Boom and Bust era relevant to this music story, and piecing together the Two Tone label stuff you'd heard before. Ghost Town was a number 1 hit because it completely spoke to the experiences young people were living through at this time. It was a song that encapsulated the age we were living in perfectly.
My paternal forebears came from a small village near Coventry...every time I tell Australians or even some English that the nearest big town to the village is Coventry, I get a blank look. Strange. Did they never hear of Lady Godiva? Love the Specials. 😊
I saw them at one of the early gigs of their comeback, when they played Plymouth. If memory serves me correctly, it was the original lineup minus Jerry Dammers but they were outstanding. I was too young to have seen them live during their original run (I only started school in 1980) but they sounded just like they had on all the records I’d listened to (both coming from my older siblings bedroom and my own record and cd players). They were still very much speaking out against the racist organisations, with Terry Hall dedicating the song It Doesn’t Make It Alright to Nick Griffin (then leader of the BNP). As much as I love Ghost Town, I have to admit that Friday Night, Saturday Morning and Man At C&A are probably amongst my favourites of a band that pretty much only produced great tracks. Oh and The Fun Boy Three are definitely worth looking into further.
I went to see The Specials live a few years ago. I heard some people in the audience saying they don't like The Specials as much now as the band have become left-wing 😅
The Specials and Fun Boy Three are well worth a dive. Terry Hall co-wrote "Our Lips are Sealed" with Jane Wiedlin and the Go-Go's had a hit with it in the US and FB3 had a hit with it in the UK. Both are both great and very very different from each other. Some how the Go-Go's would up the opening act on one of The Specials tours and they clicked...
When you talk to Roddy he's so down to earth, he's got great work ethic and is a very family oriented man, and still going strong with his own group, but is adamant you don't bring up The Specials, it was just something he did, and its rare that he'll mention his time with them to this day, he makes it plain they didn't get on, but with his ethics he won't tell stories about other Specials members, just because he didnt get on with them, and you must respect a person that won't slag off others they didn't get on with to sell stories, or make themselves sound better, he'd rather just leave it in the past
Two-tone has two meanings: the one described in the video, but it’s also an artificial fabric that shimmers two tones and was popular with New Mods who wore suits. What’s missing so often from videos about youth trends is that they often start in the queer and / or AfroCaribbean world
Yes, Coventry had an amazing industrial history. In fact, post WWII the Germans came to Coventry and employed a large number of engineers to go to Germany to help seed German industry. In the 1970s, all industry in the UK and Coventry in particular, was in terminal decline - I remember it well. And I can say that anything outside the M25 was completely ignored. And it is these areas which no form the 'angry' people who are looking for someone or something to blame their difficulties on. Pretty much the same all across the world.
I always found the interesting part was the juxtaposition of a royal wedding in 1981 with the riots. The interesting part is, following the royal wedding in 2011 there were also riots. Almost as if those who are having a terrible time can't cope with the overtly massive wealth enjoyed by the few.
Wow memories lol.. I was 11 when this was released and I think we ( me and my sister) still have it in our singles box.. everyone loved this, and it was one of the few songs other than Madness and Bad Manners the the boys at school would actually dance to at school discos 😂😂😊
Ghost Town always makes me think of that one bit in Father Ted where the DJ only has one single record and it’s Ghost Town 😂 th-cam.com/video/LrZAtp157KI/w-d-xo.htmlsi=VaI7UQ_G939FJHzh
I'm from Birmingham and there's definitely a rivalry between the two cities. I remember my grandmother saying it was because the Germans bombed Coventry thinking it was Birmingham! I'm sure it's more to do with resources and government financial decisions
Highly recommend a TV series called 'This is England 86' '88' and '90'. Really good representation of the middle period of the rise of the 'NF' branch of skinheads, and those who did not except it. How it rose from poverty and desperation, stars Joe Gilgun, and you can never go wrong with something he is in, except may 'Emmerdale'.
My husband went to see The Specials when he was a teenager. He couldn't understand how people were coming out of *that* show and immediately talking about going and beating up PoC.
Oh man, some of the 80s mainstream was great. For a truly strange (but wonderful) hit, try Japan's 1982 No.5 release Ghosts. Also, you may have heard a snippet of Ghost Town at the start of 2004 zombie comedy Shaun of the Dead.
These are the kinds of videos that Millennials and GenZ should watch, and then realise that these songs are written by the boomers they despise so much.
Love to see you react to ren a British musician that is a once in a lifetime talent try hi ren and jenny and screach you will not have heard anything like it 😎👍
Im from cheshire (England) and to me, coventry, Birmingham was and still is a shit hole but the music from there was so good. The whole of the uk became a ghost town during covid. Lots of people would stand at their doors and sing ghost town altogether 😅😅😅
Understanding the English (or rather British) Civil Wars is fairly integral to understanding the Revolutionary War, but sadly the US teaches the Revolutionary War as if it happened in a vacuum
This was The Music that the overtly non-racists flocked to when it was new. At the time in the uk the far right racists were a deep part of the establishment and society, listening to the specials marked you out, it was a brave move, an act of defiance at the time. These days the far rights racists are back, I've yet to be introduced to today's 'the specials' … I'm sure they already exist or are about to.
The "church" is a memorial to the people of coventry after the once beautiful medieval city was practically destroyed during world war two , the church is a ruin .
RIP Terry Hall you influenced a generation
Gone way too soon.
"Ghost Town" one of the greatest political/protest songs ever, 1981 was a crazy year in the UK.
Coventry was almost flattened by bombing in WWII due to it being the location of many factories producing armaments.
The "church" is Coventry cathedral which was gutted by fire during the largest air raid. After the war it was decided to keep the ruins of the medieval structure and build a new modernist cathedral next to it as a symbol of rebirth after the horror of war. The juxtaposition is very beautiful, and reflects something of the character of the people of Coventry, tough and independent.
It was and is such a great song. During Covid lockdowns i was reminded of it and how much of the lyrics still applied.
It was the backing track in my head as lockdown approached, more and more people working from home, and hardy any traffic.
That's not just a church. That's Coventry Cathedral.
It was bombed in the war. It was gutted out, but the outer walls are mostly there. So it's just been preserved like that and is sometimes used as an outside performance space.
There has always been a rivalry between Coventry and Birmingham. The skilled factory workers in Coventry referred to their counterparts in Birmingham as "metal bashers" and called a hammer a "Birmingham screwdriver".
Terry Hall..RIP..A lovely, lovely bloke.
You didn’t notice that one of the churches was a shell, that’s because Coventry was heavily bombed in WW2
My son got to see them on tour several years ago, he went with his Dad and Uncle, and just had the best time.
I remember 1981 so vividly. I can remember my Dad driving me (as a ten year old) to gymnastics training and warning me to hunker down in the footwell of the car as we drove through Manchester. The youth were out on the streets and things were looking hairy. Every time I hear Ghost Town it comes flooding back. I still love this song though. It is one of the most original songs ever produced -absolute genius.
For those itching to hear " A Message to You Rudy" th-cam.com/video/cntvEDbagAw/w-d-xo.htmlsi=_f06xCC81WPqLuO8
The young engineer John Rivers - at Woodbine Studios, now owns the Studio in 2024.
"My Ding-a-ling" was recorded live...at Coventry Polytechnic.
"Mouldy Old Dough" By Lieutenant Pigeon was recorded less than a mile away.
Both where chart toppers either side of the Atlantic in 1972.
As it happens, that live version of My-Ding-A-Ling was recorded at the Locarno in Coventry... you know, the very nightspot Terry Hall was singing about. Small world.
This song. (Ahh ahh.)
Had becoming of a ghost song. (Ahhh ah.)
Bands don't play no more. (Bada da da da ta da.)
Until Father Ted, that is. That show single-handedly, in one single eposide EXPLODED this song back into culture.
For the few dozen people who made the crossover.
All stand for the Irish national anthem!
There is a British saying. “Being sent to Coventry” means no one talks to you.
The saying is centuries old. Ironically it got very badly Bombed in WW2 despite the allies knowing it was going to happen. They didn’t evacuate the city as it would let the Germans know they had broken Enigma.
The Specials did get back together (minus Jerry Dammers )and had a no.1 album ‘Encore’ in 2019. Rip Terry Hall and John Bradbury
I'm lucky to call most of these artists friends, best genre of music regarding just genuine down to earth musicians going.
I saw the specials headline the Saturday night at boomtown fair in 2017, absolutely smashed it. ❤ And the church you saw at the beginning, had scaffolding all the way to the top of the spire, in 1998, me and two mates climbed it at 3am after a night out. Great times. 😂
Ghost Town, first record I ever bought.
A million years ago :)
The go-gos reunion was because they toured with the specials in the early 80s, Terry Hall & Jane Weidlin had a fling and ended up writing Our Lips are Sealed together, which was a hit for both the go-gos & fun boy three.
Ghost Town was a state of the nation song which caught the mood of the times perfectly Also, an absolute banger.
Rest In Power Terry Hall - the early 80s were not good in the UK, your sounds were part of the escapism we turned to as teens.
'Nunnery' as a factory that makes nuns is now part of my head canon
My family are from Nuneaton, the absolute shit hole of a town next to Cov hahaa and my dad was a HUGEEEEE specials fan. He was a teenager in the 80s and him and my mum say theyre the soundtrack to their youth and they'd be out dancing to them every weekend❤.
We grew up with them as kids ourselves on dads record player in the early 90s. Very nostalgic:).
Big up Nuneaton ahahahaha
Aah, Ghost Town, my late dogs favourite song to sing/howl along to 😂
A song that absolutely captured the mood at the time.
......and if you've never seen that live version of Chuck Berry's My Ding-a-ling - go find it now, it's hilarious.
I think this song means more to me now than when I first heard it on the radio as a kid, I'd have been 4 - so probably not consciouly when it 1st got a release, but it's just been played and sadly stayed relevant over the years.
Think a bunch of us here have been waiting for you to get to this, it's such a special song - really glad you "get it" and understand the social context.
It's one of those rare songs that would fit in, make sense and sound fresh if it came out today.
Madness is coming to my home, not even town but village!!!, Sharnbrook,(show me on a map) near the original Bedford, UK, in June next year. I already have tickets! I'm so excited!! Ill be able to just walk to it! I'm sure someone in these comments will understand how awesome this is 🎉🎉🎉😂
That's more than impressive, I grew up listening to madness, amongst many many other great bands and singers in the 80s
@Garyskinner2422 Me 2. My husband has an awesome foto of him and Suggs together looking like twins 😅 as an 80s Brit kid they're part of the family.
You’ll have great time, saw them at Dreamland Margate … make sure you have your Fez 😊
@Debhu964 Absolutely 💯 wish I could add photos on here but the right outfit is of my utmostish importance.
Well jelly.😅
Ghost Town is a total classic. I was 11 when i bought it in 1981
The civil war is where the phrase send you to Coventry came from as it was used as a prisoner of war camp
It predates that, if you missed the market in London the nearest was in Coventry, which is where it comes from as you didn't want to spend the slow journey to Coventry from London.
"Being in a band is like being married"
Except that there's more sex.
I’m from Birmingham, work in Coventry and yes, they hate me
We all hate you! 😉
If you've seen Shaun of the Dead, you've heard this song. It's right at the start😊
If you get a chance watch it in the original official video, makes a huge extra difference.
It's available online. No excuse not to watch it.
A song for the moment... My favourite was during the week of Margaret Thatcher's funeral when we put Ding Dong the Witch is Dead at number 1.
Sorry - misinformation at large - Duke Dumont and A*M*E kept your Dong record off the No 1 spot.
Your right JJ it was inspiring.was 11 at the time and its seared into my brain the feeling and memories of the early eighties.
I've been waiting for you to get to Two Tone and The Specials.
Love that you stuck with the Wiki entry for Coventry until you got to the Boom and Bust era relevant to this music story, and piecing together the Two Tone label stuff you'd heard before.
Ghost Town was a number 1 hit because it completely spoke to the experiences young people were living through at this time. It was a song that encapsulated the age we were living in perfectly.
My paternal forebears came from a small village near Coventry...every time I tell Australians or even some English that the nearest big town to the village is Coventry, I get a blank look. Strange. Did they never hear of Lady Godiva?
Love the Specials. 😊
Lady Godiva got "sent to Coventry."
Whence she was never heard of again.
@@Varksterable Peeping Tom on the other hand.
@@niallrussell7184 The small village of Peeping, Kent, remembers him well.
I saw them at one of the early gigs of their comeback, when they played Plymouth. If memory serves me correctly, it was the original lineup minus Jerry Dammers but they were outstanding. I was too young to have seen them live during their original run (I only started school in 1980) but they sounded just like they had on all the records I’d listened to (both coming from my older siblings bedroom and my own record and cd players). They were still very much speaking out against the racist organisations, with Terry Hall dedicating the song It Doesn’t Make It Alright to Nick Griffin (then leader of the BNP).
As much as I love Ghost Town, I have to admit that Friday Night, Saturday Morning and Man At C&A are probably amongst my favourites of a band that pretty much only produced great tracks.
Oh and The Fun Boy Three are definitely worth looking into further.
I went to see The Specials live a few years ago. I heard some people in the audience saying they don't like The Specials as much now as the band have become left-wing 😅
🙈
The Specials and Fun Boy Three are well worth a dive. Terry Hall co-wrote "Our Lips are Sealed" with Jane Wiedlin and the Go-Go's had a hit with it in the US and FB3 had a hit with it in the UK. Both are both great and very very different from each other.
Some how the Go-Go's would up the opening act on one of The Specials tours and they clicked...
When you talk to Roddy he's so down to earth, he's got great work ethic and is a very family oriented man, and still going strong with his own group, but is adamant you don't bring up The Specials, it was just something he did, and its rare that he'll mention his time with them to this day, he makes it plain they didn't get on, but with his ethics he won't tell stories about other Specials members, just because he didnt get on with them, and you must respect a person that won't slag off others they didn't get on with to sell stories, or make themselves sound better, he'd rather just leave it in the past
Two-tone has two meanings: the one described in the video, but it’s also an artificial fabric that shimmers two tones and was popular with New Mods who wore suits. What’s missing so often from videos about youth trends is that they often start in the queer and / or AfroCaribbean world
Yes, Coventry had an amazing industrial history. In fact, post WWII the Germans came to Coventry and employed a large number of engineers to go to Germany to help seed German industry. In the 1970s, all industry in the UK and Coventry in particular, was in terminal decline - I remember it well. And I can say that anything outside the M25 was completely ignored. And it is these areas which no form the 'angry' people who are looking for someone or something to blame their difficulties on. Pretty much the same all across the world.
Everywhere despises Birmingham, even Birmingham.
lol. Several of those “church” shots are the ruins of Coventry Cathedral. Bombed to bits by the Nazis and kept like that as a memorial to WW2.
It was so utterly destroyed that some senior Nazis took to describing towns that been destroyed as "Coventriert" (completely Coventryed)
Love then travels into music and the recording industry and your take on it all. Opens up a whole new way of seeing it. Keep it up!
This guy looks like "The Kurgan" from Highlander 🤣
*"IT'S BETTER TO BURN OUT THAN TO FADE AWAY!"*
I always found the interesting part was the juxtaposition of a royal wedding in 1981 with the riots. The interesting part is, following the royal wedding in 2011 there were also riots. Almost as if those who are having a terrible time can't cope with the overtly massive wealth enjoyed by the few.
Wow memories lol.. I was 11 when this was released and I think we ( me and my sister) still have it in our singles box.. everyone loved this, and it was one of the few songs other than Madness and Bad Manners the the boys at school would actually dance to at school discos 😂😂😊
Ghost Town always makes me think of that one bit in Father Ted where the DJ only has one single record and it’s Ghost Town 😂
th-cam.com/video/LrZAtp157KI/w-d-xo.htmlsi=VaI7UQ_G939FJHzh
😅
Loved Ghost Town! JJ when are you gonna do The Cure? 🙏
I'm from Birmingham and there's definitely a rivalry between the two cities. I remember my grandmother saying it was because the Germans bombed Coventry thinking it was Birmingham! I'm sure it's more to do with resources and government financial decisions
And here we are again?
Born in 67 Liverpool
Ironically “My Ding a Ling” was recorded live in Coventry
Highly recommend a TV series called 'This is England 86' '88' and '90'. Really good representation of the middle period of the rise of the 'NF' branch of skinheads, and those who did not except it. How it rose from poverty and desperation, stars Joe Gilgun, and you can never go wrong with something he is in, except may 'Emmerdale'.
Ghost Town's excellent, but 'Gangsters' has always been my favourite, TBH. Well worth listening to.
'Rat Race' and 'Too Much Too Young' - couple of good Specials songs.
Best SKA Band ever...
Sadly miss Terry Hall
Greetings from Coventry.
Coventry and Birmingham are alot like detroit in regards to the decline of the motor industry we never really recovered
People: Where's your great- grandparents from?
Me: Birdingbury
Everyone: ...
Me: Near Rugby
Everyone: ...
Me: Not far from Coventry.
Everyone: ...
😅
My husband went to see The Specials when he was a teenager. He couldn't understand how people were coming out of *that* show and immediately talking about going and beating up PoC.
The church's are art.
Oh man, some of the 80s mainstream was great. For a truly strange (but wonderful) hit, try Japan's 1982 No.5 release Ghosts. Also, you may have heard a snippet of Ghost Town at the start of 2004 zombie comedy Shaun of the Dead.
Fun Boy Three were a scream as was Buster Bloodvessel
I was hoping you’d do The Special’s😁 Can’t wait to watch when I get home x
I saw the Specials in 79, my mate wanted me too go with him, they were good if you like the two tone sound.Ghost town is a classic, a one off.
the situation created the music not the other way around, if not the Specials then someone else would have written the sound track of my teens.
Jaguar cars are built in Coventry.
A couple of them I know, are nice guys.
These are the kinds of videos that Millennials and GenZ should watch, and then realise that these songs are written by the boomers they despise so much.
well, the boomers who wrote those songs were protesting the type of boomers we despise.
I live in west midlands,not too far from Birmingham.
The skinheads were not from Jamaica, but the white British kids who were influenced by the Jamaicans who emigrated to Britain after WW2.
Well... they *mostly* patched things up... but not with Jerry Dammers, apparently, since he was never part of the reunions.
Love to see you react to ren a British musician that is a once in a lifetime talent try hi ren and jenny and screach you will not have heard anything like it 😎👍
Thr soundtrack to Grosse Pointe Blank
Im from cheshire (England) and to me, coventry, Birmingham was and still is a shit hole but the music from there was so good. The whole of the uk became a ghost town during covid. Lots of people would stand at their doors and sing ghost town altogether 😅😅😅
🎜🎝 Aaa-ah-ah-ah-aah, aah-ah-ah-ah, aah-ah-ah-ah, aah-ahh, ah-aah-ah-ah-aaah. 🎜🎝
Coventry is where you get sent to when you are being ostrasised
Understanding the English (or rather British) Civil Wars is fairly integral to understanding the Revolutionary War, but sadly the US teaches the Revolutionary War as if it happened in a vacuum
They say Locarno, I say Tiffanys.........
a Cathedral
after all this time... it's not Birming-ham. More like Birming'm
Big up cov
Trash theory’s vids are great! Check out his essay on xtc!
React to ren buddy he touches on so many of the things you just said hes a once in a lifetime talent 😎👍
The people in coventry dispise the people in coventry.
Lol
It's COVentry, not CUVentry.
It's also not "ray-gay", but "reg-ay".
This was The Music that the overtly non-racists flocked to when it was new. At the time in the uk the far right racists were a deep part of the establishment and society, listening to the specials marked you out, it was a brave move, an act of defiance at the time. These days the far rights racists are back, I've yet to be introduced to today's 'the specials' … I'm sure they already exist or are about to.
Hello
You don't want to be sent to Coventry JJ.
It's a ghost town where bands don't play no more 'cos there's too much fighting on the dance floor.
The "church" is a memorial to the people of coventry after the once beautiful medieval city was practically destroyed during world war two , the church is a ruin .
Everyone on your feet for the Irish National Anthem.
‘What records have you got for us this evening?’
‘Records?!?’
😅
Skinheads were never about racial inclusion, I'm 64 and English and that never was the case!
Brilliant band
Hi can you react to the boy who poisoned his entire neighborhood by Brew thank you if do.