Popular music with British culture -------- Clara

I have to say that listening British music is more interesting than researching the old films. Because of the songs leave imaginable space for me to image singers' feeling when they were singing and get myself closer with the theme.

I chose two songs to listen, Ghost Town by The Specials and White Riot by The Clash respectively.

Ghost Town http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqZ8428GSrI

Ghost town is a song by the British ska brand released in 1981, The Specials. It had been kept 10 weeks in the top 40 of the UK singles charts and won the first prize for three weeks. The song was hailed by the contemporary UK music press as a major piece of popular social commentary. It is based on the real life,  such as the rebellions and campaigns took place at that time in British cities. The theme is associated to urban decay, unemployment  and atrocity. 

Looking at the lyrics with only short and simple words, however, they reflected the recent social phenomenon at that time and the meaning of the song. In my view, the song represented the precious memories in the past wonderful day, whereas, the reality was in the opposite side, "the clubs have been closed down", "Bands won't play no more", nobody danced and sang, the town almost like a ghost town. To be honest, when I listened it at the first time, I was amazed by the song, it is a really great song. The rhythm is brisk like Jazz and combines different express style, I had ever thought such an old popular song could be one like this. But after I checked the background, I changed my mind and listened again with several imaginary fragments in my brain, I believed I could understand the affection of it. Actually, the rhythm is sad although it sounds not, in the past, the public had to accept the real world, they have no powers to revolt.

White Riot   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I9eLeZS9OeY

White Riot is a song by English punk band The Clash. It has been published as single in1977 and was influenced by the Ramones' style of three chords played very fast. The song is very short lasts for about 1:55.  In March 2005, Q Magzine placed "White Riot" at number 34 in its list of the 100 Greatest Guitar Tracks. The song was written after Joe Strummer and bassist Paul Simonon were involved in the riots at the Notting Hill Carnival of 1976.The theme is a conflict between class economic and race. Some people thought the lyricist was trying to persuade the British young people to initiate a race war as the decay was existing in UK. 

The lyrics are very incisive and rythming, such as "brick" and "thick"; "buy it" and "try it". These encouraged people to riot and gave a worthy reason.

To compare with Ghost Town, they have probable related to similar social and political background: race war, riots, violence, urban decay. One same point is they all reflex the real situation, however, the different is, White Riot delivered some positive information, especially the last sentences, "Are you taking over / Or are you taking orders? / Are you going backwards / Or are you going forwards?

Reference:

Video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqZ8428GSrI
            http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I9eLeZS9OeY

Information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghost_Town_(song)
                     http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Riot
                     http://songmeanings.com/songs/view/53154/
                     http://www.thespecials.com/music/view/36