Terry Hall - Home

This album was on heavy rotation in my cd player back when it was released, and it is again now.

Of course, I came across Terry Hall via The Specials. To be honest, I did not follow much of his career after he split from The Specials, together with Neville Staple and Lynval Golding to form Fun Boy Three. I was deeply entrenched in ska and reggae, closely following anything evolving from The Specials and the 2Tone scene.

What put Terry Hall back on the map for me was when I ventured out from my reggae comfort zone into pop, discovering The Lightning Seeds, and realizing that Terry Hall was a writing partner on several titles, for example Sense, which Hall recorded himself two years after The Lightning Seeds’ single for his solo debut Home, or Lucky You, the first single from The Lightning Seeds’ third album Jollification.

When reading some of the obituaries¹ for Hall I was surprised that, while his extensive collaborations are listed, his co-songwriting with Ian Broudie is mentioned only in passing, and his solo works are not really considered. At least Sense made it onto a list of 10 songs from Terry Hall with The Specials and beyond. For the 2020 record store day vinyl re-release of Home, Heavenly Recordings has published a piece by author Pete Paphides on the heart and soul of Home.

We’re running out of things to say
So what are we to do?
— Mistakes, written by Ian Broudie and Terry Hall

#RIPTerryHall