Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? (MacColl)

Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? (MacColl)
From: GUEST,RJM
Date: 07 May 23 - 04:49 PM

with respect, Dave politics is more than just petty squabbles about the royals, has anyone here suggested it was about petty squabbles about the royals.
I certainly was concerned aged 10 about the threat of nuclear war in 1961 re the Bay of Pigs invasion.
king edward the 8th and his wife appear to have been nazi sympathisers
.
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The late Duke of Windsor is perhaps most known for abdicating the throne in 1936, less than a year after being crowned King Edward VIII, to marry American divorcée Wallis Simpson. But what happened afterward is where the true scandal lies.

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Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? (MacColl)
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 07 May 23 - 05:09 PM

Yea, whatever...

Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? (MacColl)
From: GUEST,RJM
Date: 08 May 23 - 12:56 AM

This song like some of his other compositions is worth studying from the point of view of writing songs.
He is writing from personal experience, this was a factor in success of the radio ballads too EXAMPLE using voices of fishermen in Singing the Fishing, Wqrds and phrases were used like that in Shoals of Herring, So Ewan had never been a fisherman but the song becomes convincing because he listened to the words phrases and the speech rhythms of Sam Larner and others and it became the song.

Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? (MacColl)
From: GUEST,RJM
Date: 08 May 23 - 01:25 AM

“What I think about songwriting is that you have to reduce what you say, reduce it to its bones”PeggySeeger
Seeger says, “reduce it to its bones, so each person listening can put it together in their own way. The ballads do that. This gives the listener the chance to create from their own experience. So they are important to the whole thing.”

Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? (MacColl)
From: GUEST,RJM
Date: 08 May 23 - 01:37 AM

He was born and grew up in Salford in the middle of the 1930s depression in appalling conditions which gave him a life-long hatred of the system that produced it.
His life experience inspired him to look out 'ordinary' people (whatever they are), listen to and record what they had to say and make songs based on what he was told. Songs like Freeborn Man, Shoals of Herring, Shellback and Tenant Farmer were based on actual recordings of fishermen, farmers, Travellers, coalminers.....
The Radio Ballad 'The Travelling People' helped draw attention to the persecution of Travellers in Britain and helped bring about changes in the laws regarding stopping places for them.
The Radio Ballads gave 'ordinary' people a voice they never had before, Navvies, railwaymen, fishermen, colaminers....
Far from being "racist", songs like 'Sharpville' and compositions like 'White Wind' exposed extreme murderous racism... and helped immortalise some of it worst excesses.

He drew attention to the fact that the music we love came from working people and was almost certainly a reflection of their lives throughout history - the 'lower-class art of people who are still considered as being 'artless'.
quote Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? (MacColl)
From: GUEST
Date: 08 May 23 - 03:57 AM

I found another intersting quote from Jim Carroll, re Ewan and songwriting
" had been staying with them one time while Ewan was making tunes for his songs; he would pick a source tune and wander around whistling and humming it under his breath, adapting it as he went until he reached a satisfactory conclusion - drove everybody barmy.
What I got from these experiences never left me - I now find myself trying to match up tunes with others to see if they are related      
I came to the opinion that Ewan's favourite 'adaptable' tune was the air of 'Famous Flower of Serving Men' from Gavin Greig's 'Last Leaves of Traditional Ballads'.
https://soundcloud.com/ewanmaccoll/sweet-william-the-famous
This was used for 'Shoals of Herring', 'Freeborn Man' and at least four more
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Ov81aogaxg
'Tunnel Tigers' was adapted from a version of 'William Taylor' sung by Paul Lenihan, an Irish singer living in London."

Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? (MacColl)
From: GUEST,Captain Swing
Date: 14 Jun 25 - 07:30 PM

Someone might have mentioned this earlier in the thread (in which case I must be buzzed for repetition) but part of the brilliance of this song is that it doesn't rhyme. It's superb poetry and superb communication.

It's interesting that another song that doesn't rhyme is Paul Simon's 'America'. It's also a song about a burgeoning relationship combined with social/geographic observation.

In contrast/irony, the song "Nothing Rhymed" follows a strict rhyme scheme. It doesn't really elucidate much though.

Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? (MacColl)
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 15 Jun 25 - 11:37 AM

Yes, I think I may have mentioned that but it is always worth repeating for those who missed it :-)

I didn't know about America and never thought of Nothing Rhymed so thanks for that too.

Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? (MacColl)
From: Mooh
Date: 20 Jun 25 - 08:52 AM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qXLO8biI6sU

A couple of minutes in, the venue changes, but it's the same three guys playing different instruments.

Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? (MacColl)
From: Raggytash
Date: 20 Jun 25 - 06:34 PM

Well Mooh, I have heard many awful versions of this song and the one you submitted was up there with the VERY worst.

Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? (MacColl)
From: GUEST,Jerry
Date: 21 Jun 25 - 05:30 AM

I count eighteen rhymes in Dirty Old Town - five consonance rhymes (repeating consonants), eight assonance rhymes (echoing vowel sounds), and five alliteration rhymes (repeating initial letters). Whilst the rhymes might not all be intentional, a lyric writer with a good feel for language and diction will naturally turn out subtle rhymes. By way of comparison, The Streets of London (also four verses long), would actually have less rhymes, unless you count the repeating chorus four times.
Just saying…..

Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? (MacColl)
From: Raggytash
Date: 21 Jun 25 - 05:57 AM

"I count eighteen rhymes in Dirty Old Town"

Well Jerry herein lies a problem, which lyrics were you reading, the "popular" version or the actual lyrics as written by MacColl himself

Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? (MacColl)
From: GUEST,Jerry
Date: 21 Jun 25 - 06:13 AM

I think I was checking the original lyrics, because as you intimate, more recent interpreters have sneaked in some straight rhymes, presumably to satisfy our innate (but arguably misguided) desire for perfect rhymes in songs. There’s a lot more to rhyming than moon and June, of course.

Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? (MacColl)
From: Raggytash
Date: 21 Jun 25 - 06:44 AM

"more recent interpreters have sneaked in some straight rhymes, presumably to satisfy our innate (but arguably misguided) desire for perfect rhymes in songs"

Bollocks, they just can't be arsed to find and learn the correct words

Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? (MacColl)
From: GUEST,Jerry
Date: 21 Jun 25 - 07:03 AM

Well, yes, that too, but I must confess I have adjusted words myself in the past, when singing other people’s songs, where I thought they’d missed an obvious but comfortable rhyme. However, I’m not sure I approve of that these days, because in most cases the writer knew better than most what they intended.

Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? (MacColl)
From: Raggytash
Date: 21 Jun 25 - 09:10 AM

This is one of my bugbears Jerry.

If someone has taken the time to craft and hone a song to the extent I want to sing it I should at the very least ask (if possible) permission to use it and secondly have the decency to learn the words written by the author.

Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? (MacColl)
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 21 Jun 25 - 09:36 AM

Not just learn the words, Raggy, but try to learn what the writer was trying to say too! Maybe as we are both from the original Dirty Old Town we find it easier to understand but I find no hidden meanings in there so I find it difficult to understand the opening question "What the hell do these lyrics even mean?!?!?!?!?!" (Even without the multiple punctuation :-) ) The only thing that those from outside the area should have difficulty with is the "gaswork's croft" and even that is easy enough to look up.

As to the rhymes...

Jerry, I know what you are saying but please accept that most people understand rhymes as Moon and June. All other types of rhyme may be valid for some but, at a guess, I reckon if you asked 100 people if love rhymes with croft or axe rhymes with fire, 99 would say no! :-)

Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? (MacColl)
From: Paul Burke
Date: 21 Jun 25 - 01:43 PM

Sorry, going to have to disagree diametrically with both of you. One of the characteristics of folk, as against art, music is its protean nature. Nothing is fixed or given. You could describe it as evolutionary by its very nature- including mutation and natural selection.

Each singer takes any given song, and applies their own meaning. Young Rambleaway can be sung as a sexist song of uncaring male privilege, or as a desperate cry for help from a man who wants, but can't achieve, meaningful relationships. Dirty Old Town has been applied by singers to the townscape they knew (or imagined), and that's how it should be. McColl saw himself as a folk singer, and wrote a song, not just a gazetteer of Salford in the 1930s (or whenever), but about love in an archetypical industrial town. That's why it's so popular, and not just among committed folkies.

As an aside, my Dad thought Dirty Old Town was specifically written for him (he was from Hanson St). But then he also thought he was the subject of Robert Roberts' works about Salford, The Classic Slum and A Ragged Schooling. Even though he was a dozen years younger than Roberts.

Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? (MacColl)
From: Raggytash
Date: 21 Jun 25 - 02:59 PM

Paul, if a wordsmith has gone to the time and trouble to create something beautiful, so beautiful in fact that others want to use that work, what on earth gives them the right to change and alter that piece of work.

If they want something different they should write their own songs.

Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? (MacColl)
From: Paul Burke
Date: 21 Jun 25 - 03:56 PM

Raggy, I know some really brilliant songwriters, and I also have an idea of what happens in a real live tradition; the deviation from the authored words may appeal to some people more than the original; and that's their prerogative. The author can put it out, but the power is with the hearers. They are writing their own songs, starting with what they hear.

You'll possibly challenge my understanding of "real live tradition". My experience was the Irish music scene in Manchester in the 70s. Irish music was in transition, there was the established scene (Comhltas), Michael Coleman records on 78, Leo Rowsome and Seamus Ennis and all that available on record. There were the musicians from Ireland, labourers for the most part, a couple of young monks too, old fellers like Jimmy Taylor with his wrecked face and arthritic knobbly fingers who played like an angel, or Pack Dyer!!!. And us neophytes. And the tunes they knew, and the ones we got from the Chieftains, Ceoltori Laighinn (spelling?), Sean O'Riada, Geordies and morrismen who joined the session with their own tunes with spicy flavours... well, it was changing as we played. It's dynamic, not fossilised.

And if a variant of a perfect poem appeals better to the singer, and more importantly to the singer's audience (whoever they may be - you can't dictate that only authorised people should be listening), it will supersede the crafted original - for that audience. You can grumble all you like, but you won't convince them. And the original is still there, for those who prefer it.

Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? (MacColl)
From: Fred
Date: 21 Jun 25 - 03:59 PM

I've performed this song at gigs since oh, maybe 1967.

It's a song about the industrial north and the writer just happened to live in Salford. He paints a good picture of what life there back then would've been like - for HIM.

I've been there
many times to the Guitar Repair Workshop ànd each time I'm there I find myself humming the tune as I stand and look around.

Fred

Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? (MacColl)
From: Paul Burke
Date: 21 Jun 25 - 04:01 PM

BTW Dave, I see you were talking a couple of years ago about prostitutes on Trafford Road. Well, when we were very young, we were on a bus down that way (the 58) and someone (I think my little sister) asked why the ladies were so well dressed. And my Auntie Doris replied, "They're the fishermens' wives waiting for them to come home".

Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? (MacColl)
From: GUEST,Captain Swing
Date: 21 Jun 25 - 06:37 PM

I used to be in a duo with a guy who insisted on singing " I met my love by the gasworks waft". When I pointed out the original lyric he was adamant that his version was correct. When I asked him to explain "waft" he gave some idea about the draught from the gasworks chimney. I believe he had heard the Pogues indecipherable version and had made his own mistaken interpretation.

I agree with most of the last few posts; Raggytash, Jerry, Paul, Fred and DTG. I also believe that EM chose his words very carefully in this song to include the subtle but discard the obvious. It's a shame that the popular but weak (in my opinion) Pogues version has done a disservice to a great piece of poetry.

Now, what EM was on when he wrote "Kissed her once again at Wapping, after that there was no stopping", I'm sure we'll never know!

Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? (MacColl)
From: GUEST,Jerry
Date: 21 Jun 25 - 06:40 PM

Just for the record, I never suggested that love rhymed with croft, or axe rhymed with fire, but I do agree that most people expect rhymes to be clean, with both the vowels and the ending consonants to be identical (as in moon and June). Where they are often wrong though is to suggest that there are no rhymes at all, just because there are none of their preferred type of rhyme used.

When I was a teenager and first heard Paul Simon’s Leaves that Are Green, I always thought the chorus was weak because it lacked perfect rhymes, but it is actually laced with other types of rhyme:
And the leaves that are green (assonance rhyming ee sound)
Turn to brown (consonance rhyming n sound)
And they wither in the wind (alliteration with wi sound),
And they crumple in your hand (consonance rhyming nd sound).

Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? (MacColl)
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 22 Jun 25 - 04:09 AM

I like that, Paul :-)

Sorry Jerry but, to most people, none of their preferred type of rhyme does mean no rhyme. You may be able to justify the alternative rhymes academically but you will never convince me and many others that leaves rhymes with green or wither rhymes with wind. OK, we may be poetry illiterates but that is the way of the world!

Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? (MacColl)
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 22 Jun 25 - 05:07 AM

Fred - if the guitar place is the one on Regent Road you are in the right area. The old canal would be the MB&B behind there. The gasworks was just down the road and Winsor Bridge sidings would have seen many trains setting the night on fire :-)

Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? (MacColl)
From: Fred
Date: 22 Jun 25 - 05:37 AM

Dave -

Good to know mate.

Yes, the one on Regent Road (inside PMT) fronted by Steve Curtis. A road trip as I live in South Lincolnshire, way down in the Midlands.

But whenever I go there, I stand and look around, trying to imagine it in HIS day, and it's then that the song always pops into my head.

Next time I'll be able to seek out more, so thanks for the tour guide :)

Fred

Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? (MacColl)
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 22 Jun 25 - 05:48 AM

If you fancy a change while waiting for your box to be fettled, Fred, Lark Hill Place is worth a visit.

Sadly though, your visits may stop as I have just seen this :-( PMT in receivership I don't know how this affects the repair workshop.

Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? (MacColl)
From: MaJoC the Filk
Date: 22 Jun 25 - 05:52 AM

Thought For The Day: Words don't need to rhyme if they resonate.

Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? (MacColl)
From: Fred
Date: 22 Jun 25 - 06:00 AM

Dave -

Oh dear :(

But I dare say the Workshop will find another place in the area. Even if it doesn't, I'll find SOME excuse to visit.

I love the place :)

Fred

Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? (MacColl)
From: Paul Burke
Date: 22 Jun 25 - 06:04 AM

Windsor Bridge was a major transhipment point between BR (earlier LMS) and the many factories in Salford... and the Manchester Ship Canal. A tunnel ran from the sidings into Salford docks, with frequent trains. St Joey's school playground was actually formed by the cut- and- cover construction of this tunnel, and whenever a train went through the kids would hear a loud rumbling noise. They called the tunnel the "funder" - that f or v for th was very Salford (Bringle Eaf* for Brindle Heath for example).

Lark Hill Place is still going? I thought it was magic as a kid. But I never got to go down the mine in Buile Hill Park museum, it was always shut.

*Where vey ave canguls in bockuls on th'mankulpiece.

Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? (MacColl)
From: Fred
Date: 22 Jun 25 - 06:13 AM

Totally understand what follows *

Fred

Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? (MacColl)
From: GUEST,Jerry
Date: 22 Jun 25 - 08:22 AM

If words in songs resonate with you, then surely they are rhyming, but on another level?

You could also argue that the best rhymes are the ones that pass you by unnoticed anyway (as those above in Leaves that Are Green), and like this (alliteration and assonance)::
I’m empty and aching and I don’t know why,
Counting the cars on the New Jersey Turnpike…
Again, don’t let’s be too hasty to complain about the absence of rhymes.

Too many perfect rhymes in a song can be rather distracting from the narrative, and even be a bit crass, hence the greater reliance on them in comedy songs for humorous effect. Dylan must have had great fun in log piling such rhymes in It’s All Right, Ma, All I Want to Do, Fourth Time Round, etc, etc.

Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? (MacColl)
From: GUEST,Jerry
Date: 22 Jun 25 - 08:46 AM

Sorry to go on, but here’s an example of over reliance on perfect rhymes (if we must really pander to ‘poetry illiterates’j’:

And leaves seen,
To be green,
Drown to brown,
And they soon rot to bits,
And they crumble in your mitts…

Crass, or what? Alternative/unnoticed rhyming makes all the difference surely?

Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? (MacColl)
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 22 Jun 25 - 12:35 PM

Sorry - My fault for coining that phrase so I withdraw 'poetry illiterates' and use the term 'pedant' (to describe myself anyway) :-)

I think we are just using the word 'rhyme' in different contexts. My understanding of rhyme is the same as in the definition provided to Google by Oxford Languages. IE -

noun: rhyme

    correspondence of sound between words or the endings of words, especially when these are used at the ends of lines of poetry.
    "poetic features such as rhythm, rhyme, and alliteration"

Your definition seems to encompass what Oford Languages are calling 'poetic features'. Note that in the above definition they differentiate between rhyme and alliteration.

I do not accept that consonance, assonance and alliteration are the same as rhymes but I agree that they are poetic features. The song in question therefore, to me, contains no rhymes but does contain all the poetic features that you mention.

It is an academic pomt and matters not one jot to the enjoyment of the words so I think we just need to agree to differ on that one :-D

Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? (MacColl)
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 22 Jun 25 - 12:42 PM

Going back to your point about, errr, ladies of the night, Paul. We once took my Dad to Portland Street in Manchester to catch the Warsaw bus (Honest!) It was in the early hours and on seeing a very scantily clad yound lady he suggested that she may be lost or waiting for a lift and suggested that I should go and ask if she was OK.

Have you any idea how difficult it is to explain sunch things to an ageing parent? :-D

Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? (MacColl)
From: GUEST,Jerry
Date: 22 Jun 25 - 02:46 PM

Fair enough, but I regard rhyming as essentially any repetition of sounds - whether they are at the end of words (moon and coin), the middle of words (moon and tooth), the start of words (moon and mire), or indeed at both the middle and end (moon and June). Clearly the last device is the most popular in songwriting, probably because it’s more appealing to vocalise, but it’s certainly not the only one used.

Stephen Fry takes you through all the different types of rhyme in his book ‘The Ode Less Travelled’, if my memory serves, but I accept it’s probably only of interest to those of us intrigued by songwriting (and poetry). Other texts on lyric writing are available, but are less easy reading in my experience. Before everybody else on here dies of boredom, here’s a final thought: even the complete repetition of a word is itself a rhyme, so the refrain line “Dirty old town, dirty old town” does actually contain a full rhyme. Some might even argue that’s three rhymes!

Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? (MacColl)
From: Fred
Date: 22 Jun 25 - 02:48 PM

Speaking of ladies of the night, is EM referring to them in "Spring a girl from the street at night..." :)

Fred

Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? (MacColl)
From: gillymor
Date: 22 Jun 25 - 03:17 PM

I always thought that was the case.

Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? (MacColl)
From: GUEST,Captain Swing
Date: 22 Jun 25 - 05:04 PM

Jerry:"don’t let’s be too hasty to complain about the absence of rhymes"

My point in mentioning the lack of (standard) rhymes in both 'Dirty Old Town' and 'America' was not to complain but to praise. In both songs the writers use all of the poetic techniques that you have mentioned to the extent that the listener will generally be unaware of the lack of rhymes. As I said, "part of the brilliance of this song is that it doesn't rhyme. It's superb poetry and superb communication."

Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? (MacColl)
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 22 Jun 25 - 05:44 PM

I think not. As I said before, I see no hidden meanings.

Spring's (spring is) a girl in the street at night is the line. The verse before mentions smelling the spring on the smokey wind. Spring is very unlikely to be the girls name so the most likely interpretation (Occam's Razor) is that the spring is a welcome bit of beauty in the dark.

Other interpretations are available of course. And probably wrong :-D

Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? (MacColl)
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 22 Jun 25 - 05:48 PM

BTW. I wanted to do poetry at school but my teacher said I would be no good at it because of my dyslexia. I proved him wrong and went on to make 3 vases and a fruit bowl...

Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? (MacColl)
From: Raggytash
Date: 22 Jun 25 - 07:14 PM

;=)

Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? (MacColl)
From: GUEST,Jerry
Date: 23 Jun 25 - 03:13 AM

They all laughed when I said I wanted to be a comedian when I grew up. Well, they’re not laughing now, are they?!

Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? (MacColl)
From: MaJoC the Filk
Date: 23 Jun 25 - 01:32 PM

I've probably mentioned this before, but my primary-school teacher told me that the last two lines of The Grand Old Duke Of York didn't rhyme because they ended in the same word. *Much* later, I realised that a word always rhymes with itself. Once you've got the concept of the Identy Rhyme, you've removed a special case from the set of words which do, or do not, rhyme with each other.

Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? (MacColl)
From: GUEST,Jerry
Date: 23 Jun 25 - 03:41 PM

Yes, I suspect lots of us were probably misled at School into assuming that poetry was just about sticking rhyming words at the end of every line (rather than sometimes internally within the lines), and also only going for rhymes involving the vowel sounds (plus the ending consonants). Hence we get cliches like moon and June, but so little attention would be drawn to the likes of moon and moan, moon and cool, moon and mist, etc, even though they served scribblers like Will Shakespeare very well.

As for identical rhymes, where would pop song lyricists, from Buddy Holly onwards, be without such ’ear worm’ repetitions? “I love to love, but my baby just loves to dance…”

Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? (MacColl)
From: Raggytash
Date: 23 Jun 25 - 07:02 PM

I think my favourite line from any song I have ever heard is:

"And in the evening hear the peal the bellman sends,
leap from the tower and tumble laughing down the hill"

Not a rhyme to be seen in it but what a beautiful piece of poetry.

From the pen of Peter Bond of Middlesbrough.

Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? (MacColl)
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 24 Jun 25 - 04:55 AM

I have always understood that poetry does not have to rhyme. The point being made was that the lyrics of DOT do not rhyme yet by way of the poetic features that you mentioned, it is still poetry :-)

I think Kipling made a witty point about rhymes in his poem 'Cells'

I left my cap in a public-house, my boots in the public road,
   And Lord knows where, and I don't care, my belt and my tunic goed

:-D

Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? (MacColl)
From: GUEST,Captain Swing
Date: 24 Jun 25 - 06:48 AM

Dave the Gnome: Yes, exactly, thank you!

Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? (MacColl)
From: Fred
Date: 24 Jun 25 - 10:05 AM

I remember a winter's day in 1989. I'd gone to the Guitar repair workshop. My wife (a fine fiddle player) stayed outside.

My guitar (a Martin D-35) was fettled quicky and I went outside to find my wife standing on Regent Road,in a snow shower, playing Ashokan Farewell. She said it suited the place :)

Fred