THE ENGLISH TAPE, SIDE 1 TRACK 8
THE SPECIALS – “Do Nothing” (from the album More Specials)
The downside of living in Suburbia, which I gloss over in my semi-paean, is that it is indeed, in general, in real life, really fucking boring. Which the Specials, in this loud, woozy piece of grand orchestral skank, confront. The Specials started off as a hurlyburly dance band and expanded their range swiftly and radically thanks to Jerry Dammers’ political leanings and Terry Hall’s incarceration of metaphysical hangdog disgust. “I’m just living in a life without meaning” he moans, and it strikes home on three levels – boredom-critique, philosophical howl, just some lyric to another great slow-paced dancehall stomper.