With every record I’ve done, I’ve made reference to it,” says Hall, “but this is out-and-out. I was diagnosed with manic depression and schizophrenia about 11 years ago and that diagnosis made a big difference, because then I started taking medication. And the change in me, to be able to function… I couldn’t have done this 12 years ago. People used to say to me, ‘Why don’t you try yoga? Or St John’s wort?’ But there’s a massive difference when you’re in a deep depression and feeling shitty with the world, and the stage that I got to, where you want to give yourself a lobotomy, it’s that bad.” Horace (left) and Terry Hall from The Specials during the filming for the Graham Norton Show at the BBC Television Centre in Wood Lane, London in April 2009. Photograph: Isabel Infantes/PA Terry Hall and Neville Staple performing with The Specials in 1980. Photograph: David Corio/Redferns Saffiyah Khan, in a Specials T-shirt, staring down English Defence League protester Ian Crossland in Birmingham, April 2017. Photograph: Joe Giddens/PA

Terry: I think realistically, for me, Ferguson is managing the club again. He’s using Solskjær as his mouthpiece. Ferguson is smiling way too much.He will be deeply missed by all who knew and loved him and leaves behind the gift of his remarkable music and profound humanity. Terry often left the stage at the end of The Specials' life-affirming shows with three words... 'Love Love Love'. We were driving to Dublin, and everyone was bright and cheery: ‘Oh, it will be dead easy now.’ It wasn’t,” Wakeling said. “Lots of skinheads got up on stage while The Specials were playing, and a fight broke out – beer was being thrown all over the place.” Hall wasn’t part of a Specials reunion, the Specials Mk 2, which lasted from 1993 to 1998. He released his debut solo album in 1994, Home, produced by Broudie; a follow-up, Laugh, came in 1997.

The Specials were formed in Hall's home city of Coventry in 1977, by Jerry Dammers, Lynval Golding and Horace Panter - with Hall, Neville Staple, Roddy Byers and John Bradbury joining a year later. Hall was still struggling with his mental health, he admitted around this time. In 2003, he had begun self-medicating with alcohol. In the last decade of his life, he sought medication, having been wary of it since being put on Valium as a teenager, as well as taking up art therapy.Culture Club frontman Boy George called it a 'sad day', tweeting: 'Very sad to hear about Terry Hall! Absolutely loved him as an artist.' The album's lead single, the politically-themed Vote For Me, was considered by some fans as a follow-on from Ghost Town, which was hailed as a piece of popular social commentary having been released during the riots across England in 1981. Just reaching out, are you OK?” the song goes. It continues with what sounds like a mental health manifesto that Hall would wholeheartedly endorse. “Time is tight, life’s a fight/ Now’s the time, get it right/ People laughing, people crying/ Can’t you see we’re really trying?/ So goodbye to sorrow… Say hello to tomorrow.” The Specials performing at the Hope and Anchor in London in 1980 with Neville Staple (left), Terry Hall. Photograph: David Corio/Redferns Gallagher, Alex (20 December 2022). "The Specials' Horace Panter on Terry Hall's final days and cause of death". nme.com.

In September that year, Hall and five members of the band performed at Bestival music festival under the name Very "Special" Guests. Born in Coventry in 1959, Hall was shaped by a horrific experience of childhood sexual abuse when he was abducted by a paedophile ring on a trip to France aged 12.Simpson, Dave (6 June 2003). "CD: Junkie XL: Radio JXL – A Broadcast from the Computer Hell Cabin". The Guardian.

Describing the song in a previous interview, Hall said: "The only way I could deal with the experience was to write about it, in a song. It was very difficult for me to write, but I wanted to communicate my feelings." In 2009 he reflected on the performance, saying: 'Bestival was a trial run. We did an unannounced slot so we could just could turn up, nameless. It was perfect.' Terry Hall with Lynval Golding and Neville Staple of the Fun Boy Three in 1982. Photograph: Steve Rapport/Getty Images) The reggae punk band's hits included Ghost Town, which spent three weeks at number one and ten weeks in the UK Top 40. Hall also released two studio albums and has collaborated with the likes Bananarama, Gorillaz and Lily Allen. He said: 'The chemo treatment starts favourably but it seems that it would be March 2023 at the earliest before we'd be in any position to work. He is in and out of hospital to stabilise the diabetes issue and also to manage pain. It then goes quiet.'As you can imagine, embroiled as they were in legal battles, this consensus took time. From 2009 on, the Specials, sans Dammers, toured, and then toured, and then toured again. According to Panter, it wasn’t until 2012-13 that there was a settled membership: but then, in 2013, Staple left, due to ill health, followed by Radiation in 2014. This left Hall, Golding and Panter, plus Brad, the drummer. But then Brad died, in 2015, and, once more, things were put on hold. Until last year. “We were in California playing with Neil Young and the Pretenders,” says Hall, “and I remember thinking: ‘Well, they’re writing new stuff, why don’t we?’”