In case you cannot get at the FT site - Here is the article in full

In 1949, Salford was the smoky heartland of England’s industrial north, not the shiny modern metropolis it is today (the BBC and ITV are located canalside, as are many other glossy media companies). Its pollution levels may have dropped even more dramatically since Covid-19 quietened its thoroughfares, but Ewan MacColl’s “Dirty Old Town” wasn’t just about the smog of his hometown. It was also about the romance of working-class life, and the desperation to escape it.

One of British folk music’s central figures, MacColl was born James Henry Miller in Broughton, a suburb of Salford, in 1915. His parents were socialists, and their son threw himself into communism in his youth (MI5 had a file on him when he was only 17).

Initially a street singer, MacColl married pioneering theatre director Joan Littlewood in 1934. Some of his most famous songs were written to bridge scenes in plays: these include “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face” (written for a show that Peggy Seeger was planning in Los Angeles) as well as “Dirty Old Town”. The latter was written to fill a few minutes during a particularly awkward set change in one of MacColl’s own dramatic works, 1949’s “Landscape With Chimneys”.

The song begins tenderly, although Salford’s imposing features loom over it: “I found my love on the gasworks croft/ Dreamed a dream by the old canal/ I kissed my girl by the factory wall.” It also conjures up a certain cinematic charge: a train sets “the night on fire”, a siren blares from the docks. Spring is also smelled “on the Salford wind”, although MacColl later changed “Salford” to “smoky” at the request of the local council (some bands retain the original lyrics today).

When the third verse arrives, the mood shifts: “I’m going to make a good sharp axe/ Shining steel, tempered in the fire/ We’ll chop you down/ Like an old dead tree.” The axe represented the Communist Party. The dirty old town was capitalism, which the singer wanted felled.

Originally released as a single in 1952, the song bubbled through the burgeoning folk club scene, which often attracted leftwing firebrands. Folklorist Alan Lomax recorded another version in 1956, with MacColl singing it alongside Shirley Collins and his soon-to-be third wife, Peggy Seeger. By the early 1960s it was becoming a standard internationally, thanks to its rousing tune and air of romance. Beautiful early versions include those by early Bob Dylan associate, the American/Puerto Rican folk singer Jackie Washington, and Israeli singer Esther Ofarim, who also recorded versions in French and German. It was included on British folk-pop duo Chad & Jeremy’s debut album, Yesterday’s Gone, which was a hit in the British invasion of the US, and on Rod Stewart’s debut solo LP.

The Dubliners’ huge hit version in Ireland in 1968 forever connected the song to that country, however. The Pogues also recorded it for their 1985 album Rum, Sodomy and the Lash, and the song became so closely associated with the band that it later became the title of their greatest hits album. (The Pogues’ biggest hit, “Fairytale of New York”, featured the voice of Ewan MacColl’s daughter, Kirsty.)

“Dirty Old Town” remains a popular song on football terraces, a tradition that was ignited by Simple Minds’ 2004 version of the song featuring Celtic FC soccer legend Jimmy Johnstone (in their version it’s Johnstone, not a train, who sets the night on fire). In 2018, Liverpool fans also changed its words to celebrate the signing of the club’s new Dutch defender, Virgil Van Dijk (“He can pass the ball/Calm as you like”).

Nevertheless, the song remains closely connected to Salford, especially just across the canal at Manchester United FC.

In 2005, it was chosen as a song for Old Trafford’s capacity crowd of 68,000 to sing, as an attempt to break a world record. (The Guinness team sadly pulled out, saying that it would be impossible to monitor if everyone was taking part; nevertheless, the Manchester Evening News reported that the noise “raised the roof”.)

There was even a campaign to save MacColl’s gasworks croft from demolition in 2017, although it was finally knocked down in 2019. This was not, as MacColl may have hoped, because capitalism had been destroyed. Times have changed in other ways since 1949. Nevertheless, one senses that the smoky whiff of “Dirty Old Town” will linger on in Salford.