The reluctant pop star

Personally speaking, the losses of Mark Lanegan and Mimi Parker earlier this year hit me harder, but it's impossible not to be dismayed by the death of Terry Hall - and astonished/moved by the sheer number and testimonies of people whose lives he and his music evidently impacted in a deep and powerful way. 

Twitter may be on its arse, but it remains the best place to go in times like these. Over the last couple of days, it's been the source of so much worth reading and watching.

Take, for instance, this potent personal tribute from Neil Kulkarni, who traces the intimate link between place and art/artist, arguing that the Specials couldn't have come from anywhere other than Coventry and that Hall innately understood "that fuck-it spirit of shared fuckedness that still connects all of us born under these three spires".

Or this interview piece by Pete Paphides, published to coincide with the release of the Specials' comeback LP Encore in 2019, which considers Hall's whole career and finds a man finally coming to terms with his demons and now at peace with both his past and himself.

Or this 2018 Leicester Square Theatre chat with fanboy Richard Herring, which covers similar ground (including grimly serious subjects such as his childhood abduction and struggles with manic depression) with an equal degree of candour, as well as such topics as wanting to be a hairdresser, getting mistaken for a ventriloquist, the prospect of sticking a finger up Bono's arse and harbouring a barely controllable urge to push David Cassidy's wife down some stairs.

Or this Madness-related anecdote from John Niven, which similarly illustrates how funny the man who rarely cracked a smile could be.

Or this thread about the context, genesis and success of legendary 1981 Specials single 'Ghost Town', one of the finest - if not the finest - #1s you'll ever hear.

Inevitably, I found myself rewatching videos of those Fun Boy Three/Bananarama collaborations, marvelling at Hall's aspirational hair. In Really Saying Something, her joint memoir with bandmate and best friend Keren Woodward, Sara Dallin recalls Bananarama's awkward first meeting with Hall ("the three of us sitting shyly on the sofa, while Terry sat on the chair opposite, his teacup rattling while we hid behind our fringes. The conversation was pretty monosyllabic") and how she later pulled what she thought was a tube of Rolos out of her bag "only to realise I was offering him a Tampax".

Woodward, meanwhile, writes about the equally awkward Top Of The Pops appearance that followed: "We had no clue which camera we were supposed to be looking at, so Sara and I spent much of the performance glancing sideways at one another. To be fair, Terry Hall didn't exactly exude pizzazz or confidence either, and he was far more experienced than we were. He invariably performed with his natural shyness and brooding disposition firmly on display, which is one of the things I loved about him." That was Hall: no pretence, no trying to be someone he wasn't - something that takes considerable courage.

Woodward adds: "He's one of those characters who doesn't say a lot, but it's always worth it when he does." Sadly Hall will say no more, but songs like 'Ghost Town' will continue to speak to fans young and old for decades to come.