Ewan MacColl and Stalin

Subject: RE: Ewan MacColl and Stalin
From: Noreen
Date: 27 Sep 02 - 05:43 AM

Fascinating! Thanks all, especially Becky.

Subject: RE: Ewan MacColl and Stalin
From: toadfrog
Date: 27 Sep 02 - 02:15 PM

One thing I'm curious about. I am told McColl always lived in relative poverty, but made it big with a single hit song, published very late in his life. Can anyone say which song that was?

Subject: RE: Ewan MacColl and Stalin
From: GUEST
Date: 27 Sep 02 - 02:19 PM

The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face

Subject: RE: Ewan MacColl and Stalin
From: Big Tim
Date: 27 Sep 02 - 03:46 PM

Despite being quite a big fan of Ewan (I have six albums), I don't rate "The First Time.." too highly. I think it's honest and heartfelt but not that good. I think "Dirty Old Town" is his best and will be the most enduring. Thoughts?

Was E & P's first son Hamish? If so, saw him on tv recently (17 March 2002, Tara tv of fond memory) backing Christy Moore. Can't be bad.

This one is sensitive, but here goes anyway. The Scottish singer I mentioned earlier told me recently that Kirsty "cut Peggy off from the royalties that she was morally, if not legally, entitled to - this caused Peggy some 'financial embassassment' ". This was just days after Kirsty's extremely sad accident. ??

Subject: RE: Ewan MacColl and Stalin
From: Jim McLean
Date: 28 Sep 02 - 06:55 AM

Are not Ewan and Peggy joint writers of First Time ...?
Jim McLean

Subject: RE: Ewan MacColl and Stalin
From: GUEST
Date: 28 Sep 02 - 09:29 AM

No. Although Peggy was his inspiration for the song, Ewan wrote "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face" by himself.

Subject: RE: Ewan MacColl and Stalin
From: Leadfingers
Date: 28 Sep 02 - 09:47 AM

Ewan MacColl was a great influnce on the British Folk scene,both good and bad.The songs he wrote,especially for the Radio Ballads have been absorbed into the tradition in most cases,as have some of his other offerings.I still think that at heart he was too hypocritical,in the way he insisted that any one else could only sing songs that pertained to their own background and upbringing,while he could sing what he fancied-Scottish or London,or Lancashire or Yorkshire or whatever else.Look at what he recorded-even Army songs from a pacifist.

Subject: RE: Ewan MacColl and Stalin
From: GUEST,folkiedave
Date: 28 Sep 02 - 04:23 PM

Further to the story of Peggy and Ewan first meeting. In her "Desert Island Discs" programme Peggy talked as she does above about coming from Denmark. What she doesn't say above - which she did on the programme - was that the meeting was in the Newlove/MacColl home and that Jean Newlove was a model. When Peggy turned up Jean Newlove threw her in the bath tidied her up, dressed her in Balenciaga and put her hair up. She then went into the room and sat on a stool and played. And the was "The First Time Ever.....etc.

Two further questions to add to the discussion and keep (what to me is) a fascinating thread going.

It was always a mystery where MacColl was during the war.......suggestions I have heard included desertion and Moscow.

Also it was a story circulating for a long time that the name change came about when Miller/MacColl re-met Joan after the war and the first thing he said to her was "Call me Ewan" - the suggestion in that story again linking to his desertion.

Can anyone shed any light on these?

Subject: RE: Ewan MacColl and Stalin
From: Susanne (skw)
Date: 28 Sep 02 - 05:25 PM

Folkiedave, desertion is what Joan Littlewood implies in her book. (I think I quoted it on another thread.)

Subject: RE: Ewan MacColl and Stalin
From: toadfrog
Date: 28 Sep 02 - 11:11 PM

Probably THIS THREAD [Cross-reference to main McColl thread.]

Subject: RE: Ewan MacColl and Stalin
From: Martin Graebe
Date: 29 Sep 02 - 06:45 AM

The De Vere Hotel in Swindon has a room they call 'The Library' - very swish, for executive-type meetings. I was in there a couple of years ago and noticed that among the job-lot of books that they had bought to fill the shelves were a dozen copies of 'Journeyman'

Very ironic!

Subject: RE: Ewan MacColl and Stalin
From: GUEST,Stalin My Captain My Captain
Date: 18 Jan 04 - 03:42 PM

To bring this thread back to its original purpose, MacColl admired Stalin because Stalin brought one of the most backward countries in the world screaming into the 20th Century until it rivaled America as an industrial power. (You need only look at the space race: first, Sputnik, an then the first man-and then the first woman!)He made Russia (and all the other countries in the USSR) important on the world stage. Illiterate and superstious peasants were given an education second to none. Free healthcare, good housing and secure jobs. A standard of life undreamt off by the poverty stricken masses under the Tsar. Equality in wealth distribution. A reason for Soviet citizans to be proud of their country. When history looks back on the 20th century, they are more likely to appreicate MacColl's view than most of the reactionaries writing here.

Subject: RE: Ewan MacColl and Stalin
From: Charley Noble
Date: 18 Jan 04 - 04:57 PM

Well, thanks for refreshing this old thread anyway. It does make intersting reading.

Charley Noble

Subject: RE: Ewan MacColl and Stalin
From: Gareth
Date: 18 Jan 04 - 07:18 PM

GUEST,Stalin My Captain My Captain - IS NOT ME ! Though within certain parameters I might concur with some of his comments.

Just remember that the basic flow of Lenins thought were towards industrialisation.

There is a thought (excuse ??) in leftwing circles that Uncle Joe was mislead, by his subordinates, rubbish, he had a distinct view towards Party Discipline. I suspect the overview of history will justify some of his views and actions.

Gareth - A founder member of the Raymond Mercardo fan club.

Subject: RE: Ewan MacColl and Stalin
From: Hrothgar
Date: 19 Jan 04 - 05:57 AM

Just a couple of thoughts:

Russia did make great progress in some areas under Stalin - but was it because of him or despite him?

And good old Uncle Nikita, who denounced him, certainly made some bones along the way.

Of course, they had all the best intentions....