The Special AKA Live!

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The Special AKA Live!
EP by The Specials
Released 26 January 1980
Recorded The Lyceum, London and Tiffany's, Coventry 1979
Genre Ska
Length 11:04
Label 2 Tone CHS TT7
Producer Jerry Dammers and Dave Jordan

The Special AKA Live! was a live EP by The Specials, released in 1980.

Renowned for their live shows, The Specials released a 5-track live EP in January 1980 as the third single by the band. The EP featured "Too Much Too Young" (originally recorded on the album Specials) and "Guns of Navarone" recorded live in London and "Skinhead Symphony" - a medley of "Long Shot Kick De Bucket", "The Liquidator" and "Skinhead Moonstomp" - which was recorded at Tiffany's in Coventry.

Lead track "Too Much Too Young" is based on the 1969 song "Birth Control" by Lloyd Charmers. It is sometimes wrongly stated that the song was banned by the BBC due to mentions of contraception in the lyrics. This is not true - however, when the song's promotional video was featured on Top of the Pops, it was cut off just before reaching the final line, "try wearing a cap". [1]

The song became an instant smash topping the UK singles chart for two weeks in January 1980. It became only the second EP to top the chart after The Demis Roussos Phenomenon EP in 1976 and was also the first live recording to top the chart since Chuck Berry's "My Ding-a-Ling" in 1972. It was the shortest song to reach #1 on the UK singles chart in the 1980s at 2'04".

[edit] Track listing

  • 2 Tone CHS TT7 7" [1]

Side A

  1. "Too Much Too Young" (Dammers/Chalmers) - 2:03
  2. "Guns of Navarone" (Thompkin/Webster) - 2:25

Side B

  1. "Long Shot Kick De Bucket" (Agard/Crooks/Robinson) - 3:10
  2. "The Liquidator" (H. Johnson) - 1:15
  3. "Skinhead Moonstomp" (Ellis/Naismith) - 2:11

[edit] Chart Positions

Chart Peak
position
U.K. Singles Chart [2] 1
IRE Singles Chart [3] 3
Preceded by
"Brass in Pocket" by The Pretenders		 UK number one single
January 27, 1980		 Succeeded by
"Coward of the County" by Kenny Rogers

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b http://2-tone.info/2tone.pl?show102& 2Tone Discography "Too Much Too Young" release details - "It was also the first 2 Tone release to fall foul of the censors. The final line of "Too Much Too Young", "Try wearing a cap", proved too much for the nations moral guardians and the song was deliberately cut short before the offending word "cap" was broadcast."
  2. ^ http://www.chartstats.com/songinfo.php?id=8631 chartstats.com "Too Much Too Young" UK chart log
  3. ^ http://www.irishcharts.ie/ Irish singles chart placings
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