This Town ......
Paul ponders how a good soundtrack can create the perfect atmosphere for TV drama.
Music has always been a very big part of the scooter scene and of course scooter culture. So far as the big screen goes, Quadrophenia is the film that (arguably) took the Mod Revival of the late 70s into the mainstream and worldwide. There have been a few smaller-scale movie successes, for example Northern Soul, which made a good stab at recreating the feeling of Wigan Casino and dancing all night. The Pebble and the Boy was less successful and in my opinion not a great film at all. This is England referenced aspects both good and bad, and in my book is probably the best film associated with the broader scooterist culture. In some ways it surprises me that there have not been more productions about the scooter scene and lifestyle; surely there is more than enough material to work with.
What surprises me more is that our scene, or aspects of it, hasn’t spawned more TV dramas. Scooters occasionally pop up as background, but I am sure that the sheer number of people over the years who have been around the scooter scene and its associated music would make a decent audience almost guaranteed.
Peaky Blinders was nothing to do with the scooter scene but created its own amazing view of the 1920s Birmingham gangster scene set to the most amazing soundtrack that managed to fuse a wide range of modern songs to fit perfectly to the action in a unique way and still seem ‘right’.
When I saw that the Peaky Blinders writer and team had come up with This Town, based around Birmingham and Coventry and centred loosely around aspects of ska, bluebeat and reggae, I was full of optimism that finally we might have a great drama series based around our world that we could relate to.
Alas not; as a drama it is certainly no Peaky Blinders, that’s for sure. Although the cinematography is right up there, fantastic sets and period locations, the story was, I’m afraid to say, lacking.
However, that is definitely not true of the soundtrack. It must simply be one of the coolest soundtracks ever. Period.
It was full of super-cool ska and reggae. Purists and ska geeks would rejoice in the cool rarities dug out. Who knew that Dusty Springfield’s Son of a Preacher Man has a most amazing ska version by the Gaylettes? Check it out, just brilliant. That was a new one to me, I must admit. The Dusty Springfield song is a piece of the Sixties soul, but finding the ska version and dropping it into a BBC drama soundtrack is genius. In the same way, including Love of the Common People by Nicky Thomas from the Trojan Records studio rather than the mainstream Paul Young version was a masterstroke.
The team who put together the music soundtrack must have really known their stuff. There is simply not a weak song in the list across the six episodes. Even some chart songs included have a certain coolness about them. What’s not to like about Tubeway Army’s Are ‘Friends’ Electric?, and Blondie’s Heart of Glass?
Mainstream ska had to be included to be authentic to the Coventry setting, so The Selecter’s On My Radio was dropped in and worked brilliantly, and The Beat were in there too. Of course The Specials just had to be included somewhere didn’t they, and A Message to You Rudy fitted the bill. Just for the flip side there was a Rainbow track, Since You’ve Been Gone, to remind us there were some Rockers around.
Original bluebeat and ska was represented by a really cool selection including Prince Buster, Toots and the Maytals, while reggae was delivered by Bob Marley, Jimmy Cliff and Desmond Dekker. Somehow even the slightly unusual choice of Dr Hook worked.
Like many, it seems, I gave up on the drama after three episodes and the series had some very mixed reviews. I think that as a drama it will soon be forgotten, but if you google the BBC soundtrack listing, dig into Spotify and create yourself a playlist in the same order as the drama then you will be in for a brilliant evening’s listening. I did exactly that and it was well worth the effort. Do it!
I’m sure we’ll all have different memories brought back by hearing this playlist. Despite the very tough times of the late 70s and early 80s when this music became the soundtrack, I found myself reminded about the youthful optimism we had in our teens and discovering all this underground black music that was so unique. We loved The Specials and the Two Tone bands who made this music accessible and brought it to our ears, both in original versions and their own takes on it.
The only omission from the soundtrack is that from the show’s title, This Town is coming like a Ghost Town, a track with a message that still feels relevant today.
It surprises me that there have not been more productions about the scooter scene and lifestyle; surely there is more than enough material to work with.