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

Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning???
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 25 Jun 02 - 05:22 PM

"I met my love by the gasworks wall
Dreamed a dream by the old canal
I kissed my girl by the factory wall
Dirty old town, dirty old town"

This guy doesn't even seem to know where he is... Is it the gasworks or the factory???

"I'm gonna make me a good sharp ax
Shining steel tempered in the fire
I'll chop you down like an old dead tree
Dirty old town, dirty old town"

So what does that have to do with anything???

Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning???
From: GUEST
Date: 25 Jun 02 - 05:21 PM

The song is about courting a girl in Salford which was at the time a very smoky dirty industrial city. The gas yard croft is a bit of spare ground in front of the gas works. There was nowhere very romantic to take a girl in Salford so a walk down the canal tow path would be a reasonable option. Many factories were built along the canal banks. Salford docks is at the end of the Manchester Ship Canal and at the time was a very busy thoroughfare and the ships did sound their sirens for whatever reason (I remember them doing it all together to bring in the New Year.

Staem trains in a dark and smoky town would look as if they were setting the night on fire with a bit of poetic imagination. The bit that seems far fetched is being able to smell the spring on the wind in Salford then. Chemicals, yes. Spring, no. But then when you are young and in love wherever you are, anything is possible.

The last verse is of course how he hates the town and wants to destroy it because of it's ugliness and sterility.

Now they've swept up most of the people in Salford into nice neat high rise piles and made the docks area into posh offices. Does that help?

Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning???
From: nutty
Date: 25 Jun 02 - 05:03 PM

I believe that McColl wrote the song for a play about Salford - Manchester, England - in the 1950/60's. I lived on the outskirts of Salford in the 1960'S. For me the song is very emotive and (in my opinion) gives the true flavour of the area at that time.

Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning???
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 25 Jun 02 - 05:02 PM

That makes about as litte sense as the lyrics really...

I don't even know where Salford is...

thanks...

Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning???
From: GUEST
Date: 25 Jun 02 - 04:59 PM

Don't have the misfortune to live in Salford if you can help it.

That's what it really means. Nothing more, nothing less

Subject: Dirty Old Town? Meaning???
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 25 Jun 02 - 04:55 PM

I just had the pleasure of typing up the lyrics to Dirty Old Town after years of singing this song in pubs...

And it struck me...

What the hell do these lyrics even mean?!?!?!?!?!

Paints a few good images, but c'mon... There needs to be more than that in a good song...

What am I missing?