Dirty Old Town

The song Dirty Old Town (literally translated dirty old town ) was written by Ewan MacColl in 1949 and known worldwide through the versions of the Dubliners and the Pogues .

Origin and Distribution

The song refers to the town of Salford , Lancashire, England, where MacColl grew up. It was originally written as a pause filler for a difficult scene change at MacColl's appearances in Landscape with Chimneys in Salford in 1949, and was first released on record in 1952 by its composer and lyricist. Luke Kelly , a founding member of the Irish folk group The Dubliners , who was strongly influenced by MacColl , brought the song to Ireland from England in the early 1960s. There it became part of the standard repertoire of countless folk bands, which in turn gave rise to the still widespread misconception that Dirty Old Town was a traditional Irish folk song, even a drinking song with reference to Dublin . In reality, the popular song is a melancholy and love - hate homage to Salford, MacColl's hometown in the industrial belt of Manchester .

content

The song consists of four stanzas. In the first verse, the first-person narrator sings about how he meets his love in a field by the gas works (= Salford Gas Works), dreams a dream on the old canal (= Manchester Bolton & Bury Canal ) , about ten minutes' walk away, and his girl then kisses on the factory wall. In the second and third stanzas, the narrator describes his nocturnal perceptions of (smoke?) Clouds passing by the moon, roaming cats, a siren from the canal harbor, the fire of a steam locomotive and a touch of spring in the dusty night air. In the fourth, the narrator prophesies his “old dirt nest” to doom by forging a sharp ax and chopping down the city “like a dead tree”.

Versions

• Ewan MacColl, 1952
• Deal's Gone Bad , ska band, song released on the sampler Ska Chartbusters
• Emscherkurve 77 , on their album Die Macht vom Niederrhein
• Esther & Abi Ofarim , 1965
• Fiddler's Green , on the Wall of Folk album
• Frank Black , 2006, on the album Fast Man Raider Man
• Gilles Servat (as Vieille ville de merde 'old shitty town') on the 1996 album Sur les Quais de Dublin
• Irish Descendants on the album We Are the Irish Descendants
• Jackson Jackson from Melbourne, Australia played the song on their debut album The Fire Is on the Bird, Calling It Cats Rats and Pigeons
• Jason DeVore of Authority Zero played this song on his solo album Conviction (The Smokehouse Sessions)
• Lucero often plays the song live
• Nolwenn Leroy on the Bretonne album
• Sons of Róisín on their album Whiskey in the Jar
• Robert Levon Been from the Black Rebel Motorcycle Club plays this song on the American alternative band's album Live .
• Rod Stewart , on his first 1969 album, An Old Raincoat Won't Ever Let You Down
• Roger Whittaker
• Simple Minds , 2003
• St. John the Gambler , an emigrant band from Seoul, South Korea, played the song live on St. Patrick's Day 2007 at Marrionner Park, Seoul
• Ted Leo and the Pharmacists , 2003, on the EP Tell Balgeary, Balgury Is Dead and as the theme song of their concert video from the same year: Dirty Old Town
• The Clancy Brothers
• The Dubliners
• The Lancashire Hotpots , 2007
• The Mountain Goats , 2001, on the album Devil in the Shortwave
• The Pogues , on their second 1985 album, Rum, Sodomy & the Lash
• The Specials , 1996, on the Today's Specials album
• The Spinners , 1964
• Tom Waits , sometimes he plays it live, for example on December 31, 1988 at the Wiltern Theater in Los Angeles
• Townes Van Zandt
• U2 (mostly briefly performed in concerts, often by drummer Larry Mullen Jr. as singer, as on the album Live from the Point Depot on the Lovetown Tour)

Web links

• Giacomo Bottà: “Dirty Old Town (Ewan McColl)”, in: Michael Fischer, Fernand Hörner (ed.): Songlexikon. Encyclopedia of Songs , accessed May 18, 2012

Individual evidence

1. ^ Topic UK, TRC 56
2. ^ Nuala O'Connor: Bringing it All Back Home. The Influence of Irish Music at Home and Overseas. BBC, London 2001 ISBN 978-0563361954 , p. 118.
3. ↑ Lyrics
4. ↑ 53 ° 28 '50.2 "  N , 2 ° 16' 36.5"  W .
5. ↑ This meeting takes place after the original version of MacColl on the gasworks croft , whereas many of the popular versions locate it differently by the gasworks wall .
6. ↑ 53 ° 28 '48.3 "  N , 2 ° 15' 48.8"  W .