Who wrote ' Dirty Old Town '

Subject: RE: Who wrote ' Dirty Old Town '
From: Steve Parkes
Date: 25 Feb 02 - 06:15 AM

"Sweet Thames ..." is from a poem by ... aagh! The Brain Fairies strike again! He was Dean of St Paul's in the 18th century--any offers?

Twenty-odd years ago, ITV (UK tv network) serialised the "Flambards" novels by someone else whose name escapes me. It was set in a big country house in the early years of the twentieth century, and towards the end of the series, the two sons, home from the Great War, sat in the kitchen with the heroine; they gradually worked their way through the remainds of the wine cellar and sang a number of real ol-time folk songs, like "The foggy, foggy dew" (American version) in front of a respectable English young lady and "The shoals of herring". Laugh? I nearly joined the PRS!

Steve

Subject: RE: Who wrote ' Dirty Old Town '
From: Steve Parkes
Date: 25 Feb 02 - 09:07 AM

It was John Donne, of the Metaphysical Poets, 16th-17th century. "My mind is going, Dave ..."

Subject: RE: Who wrote ' Dirty Old Town '
From: Ringer
Date: 25 Feb 02 - 09:44 AM

Not Edmund Spenser, Steve?

Subject: RE: Who wrote ' Dirty Old Town '
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 25 Feb 02 - 09:54 AM

I think Mr Mac may have been indulging in a little poetic license - not that I begrudge him that, I have been known to stretch the facts a little on occasion!

I am not sure where the reading room at Peel Park would have been in his day but the building is surrounded by 1. The Old Salford Art College (now part of the Universty) - A beutiful gothic style red brick building. 2. A magnificent row of Georgian Houses and 3. Peel Park - One of the most open and green places in the City. The fourth side now holds Maxwell Hall - part of the Uni built since his day but, as far as I remember, there were never any terraced streets on that site and if there were they only covered a tiny area.

I think he was quite correct in his observations however and I distinctly remember the awful old slum dwellings as they were peeled away like layers of decay in the 1960's to make room for Salfords very own brave new world. Which in turn became the high rise nightmare that a mere 30 years later needed demolishing itself! Why did the planners not learn? Or did they - but were just as greedy as the mill owners themselves?

Come back Jimmy, all is forgiven. Write us a song about the clean new town, with all it's drug problems, crime and social imperfections...

Cheers

Dave the Gmome
(Feeling rather moribund himself at the mo;-) )

Subject: RE: Who wrote ' Dirty Old Town '
From: Steve Parkes
Date: 25 Feb 02 - 10:38 AM

You prove my point, Bald Eagle!

Dave (the Gnome), "The road to Hell is paved with good intentions" as Dr Johnson (definitely!) said. I remember the wonderful scale models of proposed town centre developments that were exhibited in Walsall in the sixties. They were originally made in the late forties by council planners expecting government grants--not developers looking for huge profits--when the post-war reconstruction was being planned (not that Walsall town centre got much in the way of bomb damage). They would have looked rather like the centre of Birmingham today, with tunnels and flyovers taking the traffic right into (or under) the heart of the town; all bright and clean and modern and exciting, not dirty and polluted and scruffy, and symolising the Rise Of The Nation From The Horrors Of War, etc. etc.

Even that old favourite nuclear power was intended to make something beneficial and clean out of something evil and foul (at least by many scientists with bad feelings about Hiroshima and Nagasaki).

But man proposeth and God disposeth (who said that?), and the best-laid plans turn out as lemons. I sometimes have a dreadful worry that when our children take their turn at clearing up the mess that their parents' generation bequeathed them, they'll make as bad a pig's ear of it as we have.

Steve (I'm not sure I want my mind back now!)

Subject: RE: Who wrote ' Dirty Old Town '
From: Susanne (skw)
Date: 25 Feb 02 - 05:01 PM

Dave, Ewan's eyes probably were a lot better in the Thirties than yours! :-) Thanks for the feedback! This is what makes the Mudcat so interesting ...

Subject: RE: Who wrote ' Dirty Old Town '
From: Llanfair
Date: 25 Feb 02 - 06:45 PM

To get a good idea of life in Salford earlier last century, "Shabby Tiger" and "Rachel Rosing" by Howard Spring are the most evocative.

Being born and brought up in post-war Manchester, I love the song. It reminds me of a summer evening when I was doing a gig at a club in Salford in the '60's. As we approached by car, the air smelled of chips, exhaust fumes, pollution, and an indefinable excitement about the evening ahead.

The pavements were still hot, and there were weeds growing in a neglected, tiny front garden. Even these had a smell of their own.

I remember nothing about the gig itself!!!!

Cheers, Bron.

Subject: RE: Who wrote ' Dirty Old Town '
From: Steve Parkes
Date: 26 Feb 02 - 12:11 PM

BTW, I've read Walter Greenwood's "Love on the dole", so I know about Salford in the thirties ...

Steve

Subject: RE: Who wrote ' Dirty Old Town '
From: GUEST,Tim'Bo'
Date: 26 Jun 03 - 11:20 AM

Where can I find the complete word's and music to 'Dirty Od Town'?

Subject: RE: Who wrote ' Dirty Old Town '
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 26 Jun 03 - 11:44 AM

Words and tune are right here Tim 'Bo'. Not sure where you would get the dots.

Cheers

DtG

Subject: RE: Who wrote ' Dirty Old Town '
From: nutty
Date: 26 Jun 03 - 12:14 PM

The tune is here on the alternative Digital Tradition

Dirty Old Town

Subject: RE: Who wrote ' Dirty Old Town '
From: zanderfish3 (inactive)
Date: 26 Jun 03 - 01:36 PM

Ewan actually wrote ' Dirty Old Town ' in 1946 for a Theatre Workshop
production called ' Landscape With Chimneys '

Subject: RE: Who wrote ' Dirty Old Town '
From: GUEST
Date: 19 Mar 04 - 03:55 PM

Don't forget that Ewan McColl also wrote "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face" which has since been covered by many international artists.

A good Salford lad!

Subject: RE: Who wrote ' Dirty Old Town '
From: jacqui.c
Date: 19 Mar 04 - 04:24 PM

And that's one of the most beautiful love songs ever written. I wasn't keen on the Peggy Seager version but loved Roberta Flack's. Oh to be able to sing that one!

Subject: RE: Who wrote ' Dirty Old Town '
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 20 Mar 04 - 04:28 PM

I prefered it when Ewan sang it. I remember when he sang it at Ballads and Blues Club in Soho Square. First time I'd heard it - I'm not sure it wasn't the first time he'd sung it in public. Not the kind of song you really expected from him. Could have heard a pin drop.

Subject: RE: Who wrote ' Dirty Old Town '
From: Strollin' Johnny
Date: 20 Mar 04 - 04:44 PM

DtG et al, it's nothing to do with being PC, their correct name has ALWAYS been Gasholders. In 1957, aged 10, I was taken on a tour of our local gasworks and the guide was at great pains to tell us that the proper name for the large round tanks was 'Gasholder' and definitely NOT 'Gasometer'. 'Gasholder' = vessel for storage of gas (which is what they were), 'Gasometer' = instrument for measuring gas (which is what they were not).

OK, I know I'm pedantic, but I like this kind of trivia. Need to get out more.........................

Johnny :0)

Subject: RE: Who wrote ' Dirty Old Town '
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 20 Mar 04 - 04:44 PM

That's where I first heard him do it, maybe it was the same night? Ewan very rarely sang it. I recall only one other occasion, at the Singers' Club in the Union Tavern when the effect was the same - everyone there was stunned.

It was, after all, written for Peggy which is why I suppose she usually sang it herself. But I too preferred Ewan's version.

Subject: RE: Who wrote ' Dirty Old Town '
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 20 Mar 04 - 05:18 PM

I don't know if he ever recorded it. Likely not. As well as the ones mentined, you've got Elvis Presley, Shirley Bassey, Celine Dion, Johnny Cash...But not Ewan MacColl. (It must be on tape somewhere though.)
......................

Gasholder may have been correct, but "Gasometers" were what people called them. Except when "gasworks" was used, eqally incorrectly, as in:

Though the gasworks isn't wilets,
they improve the local scene
For mountains they would very nicely pass...

(From If it wasn't for the 'ouses in between.)

Subject: RE: Who wrote ' Dirty Old Town '
From: s&r
Date: 20 Mar 04 - 05:33 PM

Concise Oxford Dictionary says that gasometer and gasholder mean exactly the same. You measure gas with a gas meter

Stu

Subject: RE: Who wrote ' Dirty Old Town '
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 21 Mar 04 - 08:20 AM

I assumed they were called gasometers because they went up and down according to how much was stored.

Subject: RE: Who wrote ' Dirty Old Town '
From: kytrad (Jean Ritchie)
Date: 21 Mar 04 - 07:27 PM

How did the word, "croft" get into the song? It was, "wall," back in '52 when we (George & I) were going to London singing parties in that fleeting time when Ewan was sometimes Jimmy and sometimes Ewan. I remember Isla Cameron getting us tickets to a Theatre Workshop evening, and there was a modern-dance interpretion of the song. It began, "I met my love by the gasworks wall,
       Dreamed a dream by the old canal..." etc.
Also, isn't "croft" a word used in Scotland meaning a small farmhouse and its surrounding fields and buildings? Just curious.   Jean

Subject: RE: Who wrote ' Dirty Old Town '
From: Snuffy
Date: 21 Mar 04 - 07:33 PM

Gasworks croft
Factory wall

Subject: RE: Who wrote ' Dirty Old Town '
From: Manitas_at_home
Date: 22 Mar 04 - 01:35 AM

I'm sure the meaning of croft has come up in other threads. A small area of land. In Hastings there is a street called The Croft and the land on which the Scout Hut stands is known as the Scout-Croft. The area beneath a church is often called the undercroft.

Subject: RE: Who wrote ' Dirty Old Town '
From: GUEST
Date: 23 Mar 04 - 07:03 AM

I was born in Salford in 1954 and this song is without doubt the best, and most evocative of my childhood i too used to cycle past the "Gasometors" on liverpool street on my way to work on the Cresent overlooking the dirty river Irwell.. oh my i will have to go back and find my roots now being a soft southerner

I met my love by the gas works wall
Dreamed a dream by the old canal
Kissed a girl by the factory wall
Dirty old town
Dirty old town

Clouds a drifting across the moon
Cats a prowling on their beat
Spring's a girl in the street at night
Dirty old town
Dirty old town

Heard a siren from the docks
Saw a train set the night on fire
Smelled the spring on the smoky wind
Dirty old town
Dirty old town

I'm going to make me a good sharp axe
Shining steel tempered in the fire
Will chop you down like an old dead tree
Dirty old town
Dirty old town

I met my love by the gas works wall
Dreamed a dream by the old canal
Kissed a girl by the factory wall
Dirty old town
Dirty old town
Dirty old town
Dirty old town

Subject: RE: Who wrote ' Dirty Old Town '
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 23 Mar 04 - 07:09 AM

It's CROFT, I have a very early version of Ewan singing it plus a newer version and he always sang CROFT. In the Essential Ewan MacColl Songbook, croft is used and Peggy explains what it means.
eric

Subject: RE: Who wrote ' Dirty Old Town '
From: kytrad (Jean Ritchie)
Date: 23 Mar 04 - 02:59 PM

Well I stand corrected, and thanks...never saw the song written out, so one in this case hears the more familiar word (wall), I guess. It matters not to me; what it causes me to remember is the wonderful singing parties we used to have, back in 1952-53 (my year as a Fulbright student). We gathered in each other's flats- Ewan, Isla, Theo Bikel (he was playing in, "Love of Four Colonels" nearby), Alan Lomax, Peter Kennedy, Seamus Ennis, Bert Lloyd, Humphrey Littleton one night, Shirley Collins... what marvellous times! I have the tape made when the party was in our flat- and Louise Bennett was there, passing though town! Ewan and I had a friendly rivalry over ballads- he'd sing one, prefacing his performance by saying how Appalachians always took all the energy and drive out of the ballads- with a grin at me. I'd counter by singing something like, "False Sir John,"a lively one in which the lady turns the tables on her kidnapper by pushing HIM into the sea (his back is turned at her request while she removes her costly clothing- at his request). Much fun and laughter, despite the sad plight of Sir John.

Thanks for the memories.          Jean

Subject: RE: Who wrote ' Dirty Old Town '
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 23 Mar 04 - 04:32 PM

Though it's true that "Sweet Thames run softly" is a quote from Edmund Spenser, the most probable source of it, for this purpose, would have been from a 1940 and 1947 book of the same name, by Robert Gibbings, author of a series of small scale travel books with his own beautiful woodcut illustrations.
.........................

"I met my love by the gasworks croft fall" is not really a singable line, though Ewan coukd probabaly have got away with it. Better, "by the gasworks croft" - the rhyme scheme doesn't call for a rhyme there anyway. I can't remember how Ewan sang it, but if he did have the line used in Digital Tradition, I'd reckon he was playing games.

Subject: RE: Who wrote ' Dirty Old Town '
From: GUEST,harleypaul
Date: 20 Mar 11 - 02:38 PM

Rod Stewart covered this song on his An old raincoat will never let you down ,album,he sings "smelled the spring on the Salford wind,dirty old town ,dirty old town."    I was born a hundred yards away from Jimmy Millers home in Coburg st ,Lower Broughton,Salford ,in Dalley st.There is nothing left of the foul two up two down terraced slum area that Miller sings about.

Subject: RE: Who wrote ' Dirty Old Town '
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 20 Mar 11 - 03:17 PM

Rod Stewart covered this song on his An old raincoat will never let you down ,album,he sings "smelled the spring on the Salford wind,dirty old town ,dirty old town."

Good reason to sing the original smokey wind I guess then :-)

There is nothing left of the foul two up two down terraced slum area that Miller sings about.

I guess you have not been to Lower Broughton for a long time then, harleypaul. The two up, two down terraced slums, that were not really the 'Hanky Park' slums that everyone has in mind, are now the big Victorian houses in Higher and Lower Broughton, converted into seedy, tiny flats for students, East Europeans and Asians. It has not really changed.

DeG

Subject: RE: Who wrote ' Dirty Old Town '
From: Bernard
Date: 20 Mar 11 - 03:30 PM

I've always been particularly fond of the imagery of 'Saw a train set the night on fire' - because I still remember the steam era from my childhood, and that's exactly how a steam train looked at night.

Subject: RE: Who wrote ' Dirty Old Town '
From: GUEST,Betsy
Date: 20 Mar 11 - 04:22 PM

springs a girl - just another way of saying a girl suddenly appeared
(out of nowhere)

Subject: RE: Who wrote ' Dirty Old Town '
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 20 Mar 11 - 04:36 PM

"There is nothing left of the foul two up two down terraced slum area that Miller sings about."
Wonder if Robert Zimmerman will ever get round to recording it - or maybe he's too busy finishing off Under Milk Wood!!
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Who wrote ' Dirty Old Town '
From: GUEST,Alan Whittle
Date: 20 Mar 11 - 05:02 PM

I could never understand why the follow-up, - 'Filthy Old Village' never really took off in quite the same way.

Subject: RE: Who wrote ' Dirty Old Town '
From: Tootler
Date: 20 Mar 11 - 05:04 PM

Good reason to sing the original smokey wind I guess then :-)

AFIK, the original was "Salford Wind". That was certainly how I first heard it when I was a student at the Royal College of Advanced Technology (which later became Salford University) in the mid 1960s

Subject: RE: Who wrote ' Dirty Old Town '
From: Bernard
Date: 20 Mar 11 - 06:02 PM

Yup, Tootler, that's what I always sing, too.

Chris Sugden (aka Sid Kipper) sings:
He sleeps down by the gasworks end
Takes his meals from a rubbish can
Dreams his dreams of scantilly clad blondes
Dirty old man
Dirty old man
Alas, he only ever collected the one verse...

;o)

Subject: RE: Who wrote ' Dirty Old Town '
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 20 Mar 11 - 08:47 PM

The Pogues also covered it: we once got asked to sing "that Pogues song" - "Dirty Old Town"!

Subject: RE: Who wrote ' Dirty Old Town '
From: Bernard
Date: 20 Mar 11 - 08:59 PM

Apparently it's a traditional Irish song...!! Hah!

Subject: RE: Who wrote ' Dirty Old Town '
From: Rob Naylor
Date: 21 Mar 11 - 06:19 AM

Along with "Fiddler's Green", "Black Velvet Band", "Who Knows Where The Time Goes", "Tom Paine", etc, etc!!!

In fact, anything ever covered by The Clancy Brothers, The Chieftains, The Dubliners or The Pogues automatically becomes "Trad. (Irish)"!!!

Subject: RE: Who wrote ' Dirty Old Town '
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 21 Mar 11 - 06:46 AM

It's also on a compilation I have called the best of Scottish folk! Sung by the man himself who distincly says smokey wind:-P Don't I remember having this dicussion not to long ago and someone posting that Peggy actualy says it is smokey because, although it was written about Salford, Ewan wanted it to portray any industrial town? Maybe I dreamt it...

D.

Subject: RE: Who wrote ' Dirty Old Town '
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 21 Mar 11 - 07:06 AM

"Ewan wanted it to portray any industrial town? Maybe I dreamt it..."
No you didn't.
A personal rule for virtually all his own songs was "start at the specific and move to the general - that way you transfer it from a personal experience to one others can identify with".
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Who wrote ' Dirty Old Town '
From: Mick Woods
Date: 21 Mar 11 - 07:07 AM

Rob. There is a great tradition alive in Ireland of singing these songs - not just by a tiny minority at small folk clubs, but in the mainstream pubs and at parties & family gatherings. The Irish don't "claim" these songs as many people suggest - they have kept them alive, as part of their own wonderful folk singing tradition.

My Dad was barred from a pub in Brixton in the 1960s for "singing" he couldn't understand why your average Brit thought that anybody who burst into song in a public was a nutter or something. Most folk clubs here unfortunately are in private back rooms. I enjoy sessions that are in the main bar, with mixture of people.

Subject: RE: Who wrote ' Dirty Old Town '
From: Bernard
Date: 21 Mar 11 - 07:08 AM

I've read somewhere he sang it as 'Salford' in the original play, but changed it to be general afterwards... it was on t'internet, so it must be true!

Subject: RE: Who wrote ' Dirty Old Town '
From: Rob Naylor
Date: 21 Mar 11 - 07:25 AM

Mick, I appreciate the different traditions, and the fact that there's a lot more singing at normal gatherings, parties etc than you get in England, but the Irish definitely DO "claim" many of these songs...

Fiddler's Green Link 1

Fiddler's Green Link 2

Fiddler's Green Link 3

Just 3 links from many to "Fiddler's Green", for example, all claiming it as "Irish".

I was almost attacked by an Irish mando player in a pub recently who'd just played it and was very vocal about "I only ever play trad Irish tunes" when I pointed out that it was written by a bloke from Grimsby (Irish name but at least 4 generations born and raised there) who is still alive and performing. He simply wouldn't believe that it wasn't "Trad Irish" as he'd heard it so much over there, and seen it listed in Irish songbooks and websites.

Subject: RE: Who wrote ' Dirty Old Town '
From: freda underhill
Date: 21 Mar 11 - 07:30 AM

This version by Tinker Duffy is sung in Sydney...


I scored my drugs - at the Bank Hotel
Saw a band at the Sandringham,
I snorted speed off a toilet seat
In dirty Newtown, dirty Newtown.

Dogs are crapping on the street
Queens are prowling on their beat,
Springs a dyke, on a motor bike
In dirty Newtown, dirty Newtown.

I had a wank, down at the Hub
Had a lash, at the Hellfire Club,
I played some tunes, at the Carlisle Pub
In dirty Newtown, dirty Newtown.

Gonna shave my head, gonna pierce my tongue,
Get a celtic cross - tatooed on my bum
Gonna shoot some smack, gonna dress in black,
In dirty Newtown, dirty Newtown,
In dirty Newtown, dirty Newtown...

Subject: RE: Who wrote ' Dirty Old Town '
From: GUEST,Desi C
Date: 21 Mar 11 - 07:35 AM

Yes to concur Ewan McColl wrote it about the Salford area whiich is a part of Manchester. Though It often amuses me when journeying back home to ireland that most people there believe it's an Irish song about Dublin or Belfast, and indeed here in england many believe the same. A tribute I feel to McColl's skill of writing in the traditional Style
He illustrated this himself on radio in the 80's telling of how he wrote his song The Travelling People, by interviewing and recording Gypsies and Tinkers around the British Isles as research. Then after writing the song and recording it, took the recording around those same communities, and just about all said it was a trad Gypsy song passed down from generation to generation. As true a Folk Song as can be, written with the words of the people so they all felt it was their own

Subject: RE: Who wrote ' Dirty Old Town '
From: GUEST,guest -jim younger
Date: 21 Mar 11 - 08:21 AM

'Dirty Old Town' seems influenced in its imagery by the opening pages of Walter Greenwood's novel 'Love on the Dole'. Put them side by side and see for yourself. A good example of intertextuality!

Subject: RE: Who wrote ' Dirty Old Town '
From: Mick Woods
Date: 21 Mar 11 - 08:39 AM

I still maintain that "The Irish" don't claim to have composed these songs.

All three links that you have given Rob, credit fiddler's Green to John Connoly. The first link is to subpage on a UK website. Link 2 is to a website based in Austin Texas and in Link 3 Martin Dardis does say that he has gathered songs from around the world, especially from England, America and Germany which has a rich culture in folk songs"
With Fiddler's Green however it's easyto see how the non-Irish could assume it is Irish because:

John Connoly is an Irish name
The word Green in the title
The Dubliners sang it!

Or in the case of Dirty Old Town:

The Pogues sang it as well!

But as I said earlier these songs are now part of the Irish tradition ...

Subject: RE: Who wrote ' Dirty Old Town '
From: Manitas_at_home
Date: 21 Mar 11 - 08:57 AM

The Pogues are a London band anyway!

Subject: RE: Who wrote ' Dirty Old Town '
From: harmonic miner
Date: 21 Mar 11 - 09:02 AM

Aha, so it's "by the gasworks CROFT"

I always sing it "by the gasworks CALL" (assuming th gasworks had a whistle or siren to call the workers.

It really annoys me when people sing "by the gasworks WALL". A very unimaginative way to rhyme with "factory wall" !

@David el Gnomo, I love that version on 'The Rough Guide to Scottish Folk', sung by the man himself. Must listen again for the "Croft" reference.

Subject: RE: Who wrote ' Dirty Old Town '
From: harmonic miner
Date: 21 Mar 11 - 09:11 AM

Re: songs being 'Irish' or not:

John Loesbergs books have a very apt title, "Folksongs and Ballads Popular In Ireland". They come from all over, but are 'popular in Ireland'

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1198194.Folksongs_Ballads_Popular_In_Ireland_Vol_1