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RIP Terry Hall

I was never a ska fan.
But I Loved and still Love the Specials.
They reflected my heritage- the Black and White, that the adversity that somehow was created from that union had to be challenged. They looked like people that lived where I did.

And....they had an all female backing band including a female goth playing the cello!

They were the only joyful music of my youth. They sang about really heavy subjects, but their music had a zest and energy and lightheartedness that, Crass, The Cure, Siouxsie and the Banshees and Joy Division didn't have.
:(
 
Out of bed at eight am
Out my head by half past ten
Out with mates and dates and friends
That's what I do at weekends
I can't talk and I can't walk
But I know where I'm going to go
I'm going watch my money go
At the Locarno, no
When my feet go through the door
I know what my right arm is for
Buy a drink and pull a chair
Up to the edge of the dance floor
Bouncers bouncing through the night
Trying to stop or start a fight
I sit and watch the flashing lights
Moving legs in footless tights
I go out on Friday night and I come home on Saturday morning
I go out on Friday night and I come home on Saturday morning
I like to venture into town
I like to get a few drinks down
The floor gets packed the bar gets full
I don't like life when things get dull
The hen party have saved the night
And freed themselves from drunken stags
Having fun and dancing in
A circle round their leather bags
I go out on Friday night and I come home on Saturday morning
I go out on Friday night and I come home on Saturday morning
But two o'clock has come again
It's time to leave this paradise
Hope the chip shop isn't closed
Cos' their pies are really nice
I'll eat in the taxi queue
Standing in someone else's spew
Wish I had lipstick on my shirt
Instead of piss stains on my shoes
I go out on Friday night and I come home on Saturday morning
I go out on Friday night and I come home on Saturday morning
I go out on Friday night and I come home on Saturday morning
I go out on Friday night and I come home on Saturday morning
 
not-bono-ever said:
Out of bed at eight am
Out my head by half past ten
Out with mates and dates and friends
That's what I do at weekends
I can't talk and I can't walk
But I know where I'm going to go
I'm going watch my money go
At the Locarno, no
When my feet go through the door
I know what my right arm is for
Buy a drink and pull a chair
Up to the edge of the dance floor
Bouncers bouncing through the night
Trying to stop or start a fight
I sit and watch the flashing lights
Moving legs in footless tights
I go out on Friday night and I come home on Saturday morning
I go out on Friday night and I come home on Saturday morning
I like to venture into town
I like to get a few drinks down
The floor gets packed the bar gets full
I don't like life when things get dull
The hen party have saved the night
And freed themselves from drunken stags
Having fun and dancing in
A circle round their leather bags
I go out on Friday night and I come home on Saturday morning
I go out on Friday night and I come home on Saturday morning
But two o'clock has come again
It's time to leave this paradise
Hope the chip shop isn't closed
Cos' their pies are really nice
I'll eat in the taxi queue
Standing in someone else's spew
Wish I had lipstick on my shirt
Instead of piss stains on my shoes
I go out on Friday night and I come home on Saturday morning
I go out on Friday night and I come home on Saturday morning
I go out on Friday night and I come home on Saturday morning
I go out on Friday night and I come home on Saturday morning
Click to expand...
 
not-bono-ever said:
But I know where I'm going to go
I'm going watch my money go
At the Locarno, no
When my feet go through the door
I know what my right arm is for
Buy a drink and pull a chair
Up to the edge of the dance floor
Click to expand...
So apparently there was a Locarno in Coventry too...
I saw one of the early incarnations supporting the Clash at Bristol Locarno - apparently it was 09/07/78 ... 44 years, 5 months, 11 days ...
 
Last edited:
Smokeandsteam said:
As a kid growing up Terry Hall’s West Midlands voice and the words he sang about dying places, broken communities, shit nights out, deindustrialisation, young people trapped and without hope, anti-racism and working class life was inspirational and massively influential.

Gut wrenchingly sad to learn of his passing. Fucking horrible news.
Click to expand...
This.

I only found out last year or so that he was probably our schools only famous pupil. Given that they were so huge in Cov, I'm shocked the school didn't make anything of it as they were blowing up when I was there, but they said fuck all and banned Harrington jackets instead.

I guess they didn't want it known as he fucked them off by the age of 14 and held one of the teachers there responsible for his abduction and rape. I can even guess which teacher.

Celeb deaths don't generally move me in any way, but this feels a bit different.
 
He never really got the true recognition of just how good a songwriter he was. But he absolutely. belonged up there with his contemporaries like Costello, Weller, Morrissey, Lydon and Ian Curtis. And as a singer and performer he had his own unique, almost deadpan style. Rather like a musical Buster Keaton. R.I.P to a wonderful, warm talent.
 
sojourner said:
I pretended not to like it in school, cos I was a 'trog', into heavy rock and metal, and back then music was tribal; you could only really (publicly) like one type of music. But I secretly bloody loved all the 2 Tone stuff. At least it's still out there eh? This is why making music, poetry, all forms of art, is crucial. Capture that zeitgeist forever, show it to people later, and then they'll know what it was really like.
Click to expand...
I've got "Best of the Specials" on my hard drive. I thought, right, I'll just listen to "Message to You Rudie" . . . but I couldn't help myself, I had to let the whole thing play.
 
RainbowTown said:
And as a singer and performer he had his own unique, almost deadpan style
Click to expand...
Yeah it was that brilliant deadpan style that was all his own. I love this song and especially the line 'policeman comes and smacks me in the teeth, I don't complain, it's not my function'. This was right after punk, and that could have come out of a punk song - if it had been it would have been all shouty, but Terry's 'well, shit happens' delivery is much more effective.

 
Idris2002 said:
Thank you for that. I remember hearing it on RTE in the 1980s, thinking it was brilliant, and having no idea who it was by, and being completely unable to find it again.
Click to expand...
The track reminds me of someone that I used to go out with in my late teens. We got back together again for a short time around 2003 and I remember him playing that track to me, the TH version had originally passed me by. Memories of two Terrys for me.
 
I rarely feel personally affected by the deaths of artists but this one's properly fucking gutting.

I wasn't quite old enough to catch the Specials in their brief heyday but I'm really glad I saw the reformed band at a festival a few years back, sounding completely undiminished despite the absence of Jerry Dammers. Terry had such charisma and intensity - he virtually stood still and did nothing much all gig looking like Just Some Ordinary Bloke, but somehow you couldn't stop watching him. The only other performer I've felt like that about is Blixa Bargeld in his later years.
 
Had tickets to seek them in Plymouth in 2019, the dog got very ill on the beach in the afternoon and we had to blow it out. And now we never will.

The saddest thing for me is that so much he and the band have been kicking back against these last 40 odd years still needs to be addressed today.

It’s later than you think, indeed.
 
I've never knowingly met anyone else who bought, or perhaps even heard, a song he did in the 90s called Forever J.
 
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