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

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,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,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 - 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: Dave the Gnome
Date: 07 May 23 - 05:09 PM

Yea, whatever...

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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Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? (MacColl)
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 07 May 23 - 04:24 PM

Dick. My Dad was imprisoned by the Nazis and then by the Communists. He was in forced labour camps in both Germany and Russia as well as having his home destroyed. When I say that at 11 I was not aware of politics I mean that I could not give a fuck about the petty squabbles concerning the royals.

Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? (MacColl)
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 07 May 23 - 03:33 PM

Home on the Range? Mac the Knife?

Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? (MacColl)
From: GUEST,RJM
Date: 07 May 23 - 02:14 PM

Dave, at age 11, I was aware of politics
he Bay of Pigs Invasion was a failed military landing operation on the southwestern coast of Cuba in 1961 by Cuban exiles, covertly financed and directed by the USA.
Furthermore my father was imprisoned to 30 days hard labour in 1936, for making a spEech criticising king Edward the 8th
Roderick, you may not have liked MacColl because he was a Marxist[ WHAT eXactly do you mean by "chunky politics"?
You need to understand that he was like he was, because of what happened to him his father was blacklisted, he suffered hardship. and wanted to right inequality, that was one reason why he was a good songwriter, he observed, he sympathised with his surroundings, he listened to ordinary people and used their phrases in the radio ballads., he understood ordinary poor people and their hardships . that is why Dirty old Town is a good song, he can describe it well because it was part of him, but he used his love of people in some of his other great songs too. What great songs did privileged upperclass conservatives like Harold Macmillan or Sir Alec Home, ever write

Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? (MacColl)
From: GUEST,RJM
Date: 07 May 23 - 12:58 PM

Peggy Seeger an awful banjo player that is ridiculous, she is a competent accompanist on banjo guitar and concertina, personally i thnk she is more than competent, but that is a matter of taste.
To be awful you have to be incompetent, she is not.
She is also a Songweriter who is respected

Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? (MacColl)
From: GUEST,RJM
Date: 07 May 23 - 12:05 PM

All a matter of taste, most people think she is a good banjo player.
    MacColl might have been described by his ex partner as boring, sometimes relationships end in bitterness,
He left a number of songs that he wrote which a lot of people like.
IMO that is more important, than what Joan Littlewood had to say.

Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? (MacColl)
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 07 May 23 - 11:58 AM

Thank you Roderick. Interesting views and a great picture of your 1964 experience. I was in Salford, well Swinton, in 1964 too but as I was only 11 I wasn't aware of any politics. Apart from those of my Polish dad who hated both Facists and Communists with equal venom! :-)

Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? (MacColl)
From: GUEST,Roderick A Warner
Date: 07 May 23 - 11:03 AM

I was in Manchester in 1964 and we used to squat in a warehouse on the canal in Salford. An evening image I can still summon. I was with a girl whom I’d met at the Edinburgh Festival and hitchhiked back south with. Doomed teen romance. Blah blah. For me ‘Dirty Old Town’ has that pathos of young lovers in a crap environment hence wanting to take an axe to it in nihilistic rage. I’m not a great fan of McColl, never was, tbh. He seemed a relic like Seeger but much more interesting despite his politics, with the memory of the Holodomor and Stalin’s mass murders still fresh. A heavy load for all of the communists and their middle class friends to carry. Some did, many didn’t. McColl if he could perhaps have escaped his clunky politics and that awful banjo player, had the talent to have been a much more interesting figure. Imo. As a singer songwriter for me he wrote a couple of gems and a lot of dross, tied to backward facing music. Pity he didn’t get to collaborate with the true visionary in the Seeger family, the modernist composer Ruth Crawford Seeger. But ‘Dirty Old Town’ still resonates for me. It escapes neat analysis and has a poetic truth succinctly put which is the mark of a great song. It will survive the heavy handed village Marxists.
Note of synchronicity: I saw Joan Littlewood’s production of Henry Four at the Edinburgh Festival mentioned above and it was a superb rereading which tuned into the energies of the time. Ewan’s ex wife, who said of him that he was a snob and became boring, ha ha. ‘A great talent but always plugging the same old thing.’ Quite. My youthful enthusiasm for the play was not shared by the New York Times review which I just checked to ratify the date…

Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? (MacColl)
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 07 May 23 - 10:47 AM

Shouldn't that be quelle surprise dear Guest? :-)

Not sure why you are using Dylan's original name. Maybe we should be referring to Jimmy Miller and Hugues Jean Marie Auffray as well?

Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? (MacColl)
From: GUEST
Date: 07 May 23 - 10:17 AM

A Friend of Robert Zimmerman, woww surprise surprise, the same man that settled out of court with Paul Clayton over Don't think twice its Alright.

Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? (MacColl)
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 07 May 23 - 08:05 AM

Hugues Aufray is credited with Chacun Sa Mer in 1999 so I guess he used MacColl's tune. He is a friend of Bob Dylan and is also credited with many French language covers of Dylan songs.

Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? (MacColl)
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 07 May 23 - 07:57 AM

The first link didn't work for me but this one did

Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? (MacColl)
From: GUEST
Date: 07 May 23 - 07:53 AM

Which came first?

Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? (MacColl)
From: GUEST
Date: 06 May 23 - 04:43 AM

Better yet, a
Performance by M Auffrey, and a Lyrics link So there is your breton sea song (with a big thumbs up on the Libenter version, it's great in chorus).

Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? (MacColl)
From: GUEST,JFS
Date: 06 May 23 - 04:32 AM

I'm a decade late, but I'm listening to a sea tune, just about identical, on a hard- to-find CD by Libenter, a large group of marine old-timers from Brittany, where the title is, chacun sa mer, credit is, Auffray. If this posts, I'll post another with partial lyrics.

Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? (MacColl)
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 10 Feb 23 - 03:35 PM

Yeah, she could have been the mother of the great Sheff Wed goalie, Ron Springett (Springette?   "Little Spring?")

Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? (MacColl)
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 10 Feb 23 - 02:57 PM

Talking of names, what if the girl's moniker was Spring? ;-D

Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? (MacColl)
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 10 Feb 23 - 12:48 PM

Or to say nothing. When asked what American Pie meant, Don McLean said that it meant he'd never have to work again.

Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? (MacColl)
From: GUEST,Dick Miles
Date: 10 Feb 23 - 12:41 PM

apropos of Philip Pullman comment and quote
The songwriter does have the right if questioned to say what he meant and what he did not mean

Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? (MacColl)
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 10 Feb 23 - 09:13 AM

By the way, I was born and bred six miles from Salford, in a smaller but just as dirty an old town. I can't claim intimate knowledge of the place any more as I've lived in Cornwall for over 36 years now, and I more or less quit the north-west after the age of 18. But my mum was born and brought up in Salford (Silk Street) and went to school at Our Lady of Grace. My grandad, with whom I boozed in his favourite Salford pubs, worked all his life at Salford Docks (as such, he was exempt from military service in WW2), and my great Uncle Jimmy, who died on the beaches in the Dardanelles in 1915, has his name up on the memorial in Salford Cathedral. That's where my grandad was christened too. I think that MacColl's song reflects a love-hate feeling about a place which wasn't exactly great but where you had to live for many years. As a little lad, I only really knew Radcliffe and couldn't compare it with anywhere else as a place to live, and I was happy (my brother feels the same), but I hate to see what's happened to it in the half-century since I left, and to reflect on what it was really like when I lived there.

Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? (MacColl)
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 10 Feb 23 - 08:04 AM

When I google the lyrics I get "spring's a girl" sometimes and "springs a girl" other times. My instincts tell me that the apostrophe is more likely the correct version. I won't go into the semantics of a grammatical discussion unless you force me to ;-) Further, my instincts tell me that, when he mentions the girl in the streets, he's still talking about his "love" mentioned in the first verse. Even further, as he's already mentioned spring in an earlier verse, my instincts are telling me that he's equating his girl with the delights of the coming spring. And I'd like to bet that, even if you could ask him, he wouldn't tell you!

Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? (MacColl)
From: GUEST
Date: 10 Feb 23 - 06:37 AM

In the words of Philip Pullman:

"As a passionate believer in the democracy of reading, I don't think it's the task of the author of a book to tell the reader what it means.

The meaning of a story emerges in the meeting between the words on the page and the thoughts in the reader's mind."

Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? (MacColl)
From: GUEST,Dick Miles
Date: 10 Feb 23 - 05:12 AM

However a good friend of Ewans "Jim Carroll" did tell me about the line "it was a poetic image"

Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? (MacColl)
From: GUEST,Dick Miles
Date: 10 Feb 23 - 04:57 AM

only the author can decide what is right or wrong surely?for example I wrote this song, I know what Imeant
Flying high but never landing
Flighted shaft of love entrancing
Through the clouds so lightly dancing
Chorus do si do and then farewell
repeat twice
2
I watched you circling higher
calling follow me for ever
Touching souls we soared together
Chorus
3 Flying for the sun were seeking
cross the waves so swiftly fleeting
never grounding loves fond feelings
Chorus
4 From the cliff face now the leaving
chasing sunbeams all the evening
joined in love our fusion weaving
Chorus
Flying high you stared soaring
to the ground i kept on falling
helpless till she heard the calling
chorus
High unto the cliff face leaving
Quivering heart so sadly weeping
gentle hands that kindly freed me
chorus
copyright Dick Miles
THE second line is not a double entendre, it is meant to mean like cupids arrow it is not meant to mean anything sexually, unfortunately facebook artificial intelligence thought other wise, and did not approve of the word shaft, a slang word that i had forgotten had a sexual meaning.

Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? (MacColl)
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 10 Feb 23 - 04:20 AM

People can interpret many things in different ways, Guest 10 Feb 23 - 02:43 AM, but a lot of them are wrong!

Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? (MacColl)
From: GUEST
Date: 10 Feb 23 - 03:10 AM

Meanings FFS David.

Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? (MacColl)
From: GUEST,Dave Hanson
Date: 10 Feb 23 - 03:09 AM

I fail to see the reason why some people feel the need to look for deep manings in a simple phrase, It's about Salford a more or less dirty old town.

Dave H

Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? (MacColl)
From: GUEST
Date: 10 Feb 23 - 02:43 AM

Dave, I do not doubt what you are saying, but it does not alter the fact that this line is open to different interpretation, I think it is just about spring and joie de vivre, but we cannot ask Ewan, so it is all speculation.

Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? (MacColl)
From: GUEST,Phil d'Conch
Date: 09 Feb 23 - 07:55 PM

It's been over a half century since I saw a very forgettable American university production of Landscape with Chimneys. Anybody else here seen or read it?

I've just added The Trafford Road Ballad to the only Mudcat thread I could find: Origins: 'Browned Off' (Ewan MacColl)

The former song was in the same play, I seem to remember the latter as well but, then again, maybe not.

Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? (MacColl)
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 07 Feb 23 - 11:19 AM

It is set in "Hanky Park" triple guest. Residential but barely habitable which is why it was demolished in the 60s. I remember the area well although we were fortunate enough to never live there. There would have been prostitutes but they would not have got any custom from local residents. Besides which, even though poor, the women prided themselves on keeping 'clean and decent'. Any streetwalkers would have been chased off with a broom! The local habituation of prostitutes were mainly the docks and the pubs that the sailors went in. I remember one or two of the pubs on Cross Lane and Trafford Road where, barely old enough to drink, I was accosted by one or two, errrrr, ladies :-) They were near to Hanky but well away from the wrath of the goodwives!

Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? (MacColl)
From: GUEST,GUEST GUEST
Date: 07 Feb 23 - 10:33 AM

Prostitution happened everywhere.
However walking the streets did not happen everywhere, but the writer does not specify which streets did he?
So I am sure prostitution in the from of street walking happened. in certain areas but whether MacColl meant that none of you experts actually know.

Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? (MacColl)
From: Stanron
Date: 07 Feb 23 - 08:33 AM

Of course meself has no idea of what the UK was like in the early nineteen fifties. First of all he would have to be able to imagine a small bible belt like town which had no black population and no history of slavery.

Mostly working class, mostly very poor, still living under the restrictions of wartime rationing and certainly no post war boom. That was still ten years in the future.

All over the place there were large areas that had been destroyed by wartime bombing. They were perfect play grounds for us kids, as were the back streets as well with almost no cars on them at all.

Don't forget that the UK had had over five years of severe supply disruption during the war. One of Germany's strategies had been to try and starve the UK into quitting and it nearly worked. America gave grants to Japan and Germany to rebuild their industries after hostilities. Britain got a bill. There were no rebuilt industries here.

For very poor people, reputation becomes more important. It's something you can have when you don't have things. When Dave says there was no prostitution on residential streets he is right. It happened in disreputable enclaves for sure but not elsewhere.

Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? (MacColl)
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 07 Feb 23 - 08:30 AM

:-D Big Grin!

Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? (MacColl)
From: MaJoC the Filk
Date: 07 Feb 23 - 06:49 AM

Girls, girls: calm down, or a Mudelf will come along and take away your handbags.

Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? (MacColl)
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 07 Feb 23 - 02:47 AM

It was back on the 4th of February that you said that they hit the streets when the weather gets warmer and I said that was nonsense. You have argued about it ever since. I consider that vehement.

Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? (MacColl)
From: meself
Date: 06 Feb 23 - 06:03 PM

Oh - so that's what you mean by "argu[ing] vehemently"? Yes, then I suppose I argued vehemently "that they hit the streets when the weather gets warmer"- in that initial post I made on the subject, how many posts ago? (That's a rhetorical question, but you are free to go back and count, of course).

Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? (MacColl)
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 06 Feb 23 - 05:06 PM

So you never said "I always took "Spring's a girl in the streets at night" to refer to prostitutes who would start appearing the streets when weather permitted" then? I suppose I must have lost the plot! That sounds remarkably like you are saying that they hit the streets when the weather gets warmer to me.

Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? (MacColl)
From: meself
Date: 06 Feb 23 - 04:41 PM

I "argue vehemently that they hit the streets when the weather gets warmer"? You've lost the thread of this exchange, I'm afraid. I don't believe I argued "vehemently" anywhere that "they hit the streets when the weather gets warmer".

Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? (MacColl)
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 06 Feb 23 - 04:35 PM

You have no particular beliefs yet you argue vehemently that they hit the streets when the weather gets warmer? How odd!

Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? (MacColl)
From: GUEST,Salford Hooker
Date: 06 Feb 23 - 03:47 PM

Malcolm Alker (born 4 November 1978) is an English former professional rugby league footballer who played as a hooker. He spent his entire professional career with the Salford City Reds, making over 350 appearances between 1997 and 2010.

Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? (MacColl)
From: meself
Date: 06 Feb 23 - 03:39 PM

I have no particular beliefs concerning Salford hookers; I thought I just said that fairly plainly ....

Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? (MacColl)
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 06 Feb 23 - 03:23 PM

Suit yerself meself. If you believe that Salford hookers only surface in the warm weather, try to visit during the season that suits you best :-)

Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? (MacColl)
From: meself
Date: 06 Feb 23 - 03:14 PM

Hey, I've never been to Salford - who am I to tell you that streetwalkers are any more visible in the spring than in the winter there, especially when they are only to be found down by the docks? That doesn't change the implications of the phrase "a girl in the streets at night"; it just makes the meaning slightly less direct and literal. Again, I can't believe that a wordsmith such as EM would have missed the insinuation, which he could have easily averted with the alteration of a word or two.

Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? (MacColl)
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 06 Feb 23 - 01:42 PM

What do you mean by essential implication? Here is how you explained your interpretation -

I always took "Spring's a girl in the streets at night" to refer to prostitutes who would start appearing the streets when weather permitted

My mention of prostitutes not taking time off on dark winter nights has a direct bearing on what you said. Had you not mentioned the weather at all I would still have disagreed but could see how you may have come to your conclusion. But you didn't. Your interpretation seems to be that spring is heralded by the appearance of prostitutes! That is what does not make sense.

Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? (MacColl)
From: meself
Date: 06 Feb 23 - 11:29 AM

Which doesn't change the essential implication of the phrase.