Here's one of the first seaport songs I learned to sing, one MacColl apparently never recorded (copy and paste into WORD/TIMES/12 to lineup chords):
^^
NORTHERN CITY

(Words & Music by Ewan MacColl (1957)
© 1963 Stormking Music Inc.
Published in Ewan MacColl Peggy Seeger Songbook, Oak Publications, © 1963, p. 87)

C------F--C------------------F----C
Where the wind blows cold and salty,
--------F---C--------------Am
Where the river joins the sea,
------------F--------------------G--------------C
Where the big ships sail the broad At-lan-tic,
------------G--------G7-----C
That's the place, I long to be.

Chorus:

C
Oh, you northern city,

Oh, you matlow's city,
G7-------------C
Oh, you sailor's ci-ty

Seen the fog come creeping shorewards,
Heard the sirens through the night;
Seen the sun sink in the salt-sea water,
Heard the gulls at first daylight. (CHO)

Grew up here by the Western Ocean,
Learned to live and learned to dream;
Thought of all the things I'd never done,
All the lands I'd never seen. (CHO)

Turned my back on you one morning,
Sailed away across the sea;
Left your judies and your streets behind me,
Now I hear them calling me. (CHO)

Notes by Ewan MacColl:

Londoners profess to find the cities of northern England and Scotland grim and forbidding places. They conceive the whole area of Great Britain beyond the Home counties as either a great barren wasteland or mountain and bog or as a continuous chain of industrial cities. It is, of course, neither of these, and while the northern cities may lack much of the charm of London, they all possess distinct personalities. The city of this song could be Liverpool, Salford, Manchester or a score of similar places.

Cheerily,
Charley Noble