Terry Hall’s 10 best songs
The loss of The Specials and Fun Boy Three frontman Terry Hall was felt across the music world. Not only was Hall regarded as one of British music’s most beloved musical agitators, a serial style icon and a unifier of cultures, but he was seen as the beacon of creativity for the working class. Against the industrial backdrop of 1970s Coventry, Hall fronted The Specials as ska and the inescapable wave of 2-tone swept across Britain.
Whether with the iconic ska band or out on his own trail for success, Hall adopted bouncing rhythms complete with scathing social commentary that came straight out of the punk playbook. While beloved for his unique style, Hall’s skills as a songwriter and vocalist are far too often overlooked. Here we have ten of his finest songs and performances.
The songs Hall produced in both The Specials and Fun Boy Three had the ability to take issues like depression, teen pregnancy and racism and transform them into hard-hitting ska songs that have remained popular for decades after their release. Embracing the culture that surrounded him, Hall defied the forces of fascism and racism to create beautiful music and a legacy few can contend with.
You can find Terry Hall’s vision of unity through music in the ten songs below.
Terry Hall’s 10 best songs:
10. ‘Our Lips Are Sealed’ – Fun Boy Three
When The Specials parted ways in 1981, Terry Hall, Neville Staple and Lynval Golding reinvented themselves as a new-wave outfit, releasing a string of hit singles boasting expansive, frequently cinematic arrangments. Included on Fun Boy Three’s second album, ‘Our Lips Are Sealed’, co-written by Hall and Go-Go’s guitarist Jane Wiedlin, was first released as the opening track on The Go-Go’s 1981 Beauty & The Beat album, with Fun Boy Three’s version following two years later in 1983.
To highlight the differences between Go-Go’s power-pop original and Fun Boy Three’s far moodier rendition is to pinpoint the fundamental difference between US and UK pop aesthetics. For me, Hall’s sloped vocals, combined with that hybridised baroque arrangement, lend Fun Boy’s version a nuance severely lacking in the 1981 cut. But that’s just me.
9. ‘The Life and Times (Of a Man Called Depression)’ – Terry Hall
“Don’t tell him it might never happen,” Hall heartbreakingly sings on ‘The Life and Times (Of a Man Called Depression)’. “Because you know what/ It probably already did,” he adds. The track remains one of Hall’s most pointed songs, reflecting on his own tragic past.
Hall spoke extensively about his battles with mental health in the latter part of his life, but his frank account of the personal misery that followed him after being kidnapped by a paedophile ring when he was just 12 years old is perhaps best summed up on this record. A painstaking reminder of the tragedy that befell him mixed with the comforting knowledge that he found solace in the songs he created.
8. ‘Do Nothing’ – The Specials
The second single from The Special’s second album, this sun-dappled gem peaked at number four on the UK singles chart on release in December 1980. It might sound breezy, but ‘Do Nothing’ captures The Specials at their most troubled.
In their first two years in the industry, The Specials landed no less than seven top ten UK singles. They’d been living fast, but not fast enough, and the touring lifestyle quickly caught up. Burnt out and embittered by Jerry Dammer’s creative control of the band’s musical direction, Golding penned this undulating number in the aftermath of a racist track. “Nothing ever changes,” Hall sings, hinting towards the socio-political storm clouds looming on the horizon.
7. ‘Concrete Jungle’ – The Specials
Racial violence was a sad fact of life during the 1970s. Swarms of racist National Front members happily marauded through city centre streets, looking for blood to spill. While The Specials were always an inherently political band but ‘Concrete jungle’ is their most potent arrow to the heart of the fascist rhetoric.
“You’re going home in a fucking ambulance/ you’re gonna get your fucking heads kicked in,” with glass shattering and the unnerving chants of football hooliganism filling the airwaves. Written by Specials’ guitarist, Roddy Radiation, the track was based on his experiences growing up in a Coventry council house. Still, Hall sings with such urgency that it is hard to escape the impending violence.
6. ‘Gangsters’ – The Specials
‘Gangsters’ is one of The Specials’ most beloved songs. Recorded in Coventry’s Horizon Studios, it shot to number six in the UK charts and was the first hit record to come out of the independent 2 Tone Label Jerry Dammers had founded.
Horace Panter told Ska’d for Life: A Personal Journey with The Specials that the vocals were two recordings of Hall’s voice pulled together. The first was an “angry” take that was later mixed with a second, more “bored” version. ‘Gangsters’ struck the perfect balance between the two, defining Hall’s iconic vocal. The imminently danceable 2-tone tune is gilded with a morose, punk angst that only Hall could deliver.
5. ‘It Aint What You Do It’s The Way That You Do It’ – Fun Boy Three
Written by Melvin ‘Sy’ Oliver and James ‘Trummy’ Young back in the 1930s, this jazz standard was first recorded in 1939 by Jimmie Lunceford, Harry James, and Ella Fitzgerald. It remained the food of trad jazz fanatics until 1982 when Fun Boy Three transformed it into a radio-friendly new wave single with the help of Bananarama. Cue Hall’s anti-gravity hairstyle.
Boasting a jocular marimba arrangement and undeniably infectious grooves, ‘It Aint What You Do’ won Bananarama their first top five single and became an ’80s dancefloor mainstay pretty much overnight. As a way of returning the favour, the pop trio (Sara Dallin, Siobhan Fahey, and Keren Woodward) invited Fun Boy Three to feature on ‘Really Sayin’ Something’. Not a fair trade, really, but there you go.
4. ‘Enjoy Yourself (It’s Later Than You Think)’ – The Specials
If I were Prime Minister, I’d order that the title of this particular track be tattooed on the foreheads of everybody between the ages of 15 and 30. An ecstatic reinvention of the 1950s Guy Lombardo track of the same name, ‘Enjoy Yourself (It’s Later Than You Think)’ is the ultimate affirmation of youth, joining ‘Too Much Too Young’ and ‘Rat Race’ on the long list of Specials songs that remind us not to waste our youth.
The track was written (over the phone!) by Carl Sigman and his friend Herb Magidso, the recipient of the first ‘Best Song’ Oscar for ‘The Continental’. It perfectly demonstrates Sigman’s knack for turning everyday phrases into universally-relatable lyrics. in The Specials’ hands, it became a rallying cry against apathy. Today, it says more about youth culture than any book on the subject.
3. ‘The Lunatics Have Taken Over The Asylum’ – Fun Boy Three
A pointed jab at Margaret Thatcher, ‘The Lunatics Have Taken Over The Asylum’ was a response to the relationship the Prime Minister had struck up with US President Ronald Reagan. It is the perfect blend of poptastic dance and vibrant and vicious lyrics.
Disgust laces Hall’s voice when he sings: “Go nuclear, the cowboy told us/ And who am I to disagree/ ‘Cos when the madman flips the switch/ The nuclear will go for me,” poking fun at Reagan’s stint as an actor in B-movie westerns before he got into politics. Hall told udiscovermusic during the 2019 reunion tour, he was “actually quite sad the songs from our first two albums are still so relevant. The first time round, we screamed about the injustices because we were kids, but now we’re trying to take a more mature view, though we’re still angry and we’re still trying to make people aware of what’s going on around them.”
2. ‘A Message to Your Rudy’ – The Specials
As with most of the ska tunes that infiltrated Britain in the late-1970s, The Specials classic ‘A Message To You Rudy’ was actually a cover of Dandy Livingstone’s 1967 hit ‘Rudy, A Message To You’. The traditional reggae rhythm was given a facelift under the guidance of the band. The cover revitalised Livingstone’s lyrics, still addressing “Rudy” but offering advice: “Stop your messing around/ Better think of your future/ Time to straighten right out/ Creating problems in town”.
The track resonated with the fanbase of the band when they started taking it to the stage. The Coventry crowds were enthralled by the ska sound and the look of the rude boy. Their iconic style was easy to replicate and gave fans a sense of belonging during a time of massive social upheaval.
1. ‘Ghost Town’ – The Specials
The Specials had a knack for making even the darkest subject matter uplifting. ‘Ghost Town’ is a shining example. A distillation of decay and deprivation in ’80s England, the song took on a new meaning when, just a week after its release, a wave of riots swept through England.
Many have come to view ‘Ghost Town’ as foreshadowing the summer of ’81, but the Brixton Riots had already set the scene two months before the single’s June release. A month later, the Toxteth Riots engulfed Liverpool. By then, The National Front were organizing marches across cities all over the UK, one of which coincided with The Specials’ concert celebrating the single’s release. Half of their fans stayed home that night.
“The country was falling apart,” Hall told The Guardian. “You travelled from town to town and what was happening was terrible. In Liverpool, all the shops were shuttered up, everything was closing down. Margaret Thatcher had apparently gone mad, she was closing down all the industries, throwing millions of people on the dole. We could actually see it by touring around. You could see that frustration and anger in the audience.”
