Dirty Old Town

"Dirty Old Town" is a song written by Ewan MacColl in 1949 that was made popular by The Dubliners and has been recorded by many others since.

History

The song was written in reference to Salford, in Lancashire, England, and the place where Ewan MacColl was born and brought up. It was originally composed for an interlude to cover an awkward scene change in Ewan MacColl's Salford-set, 1949 play Landscape with Chimneys, but with the growing popularity of folk music the song became a standard. The song paints an evocative yet ultimately bitter picture of industrial northern England, and presages to some extent the Angry Young Man school of the 1950s.

When MacColl first wrote the song, the local council were unhappy at having Salford called a dirty old town and, after considerable criticism, the words of the song were changed from "smelled the smoke on the Salford wind" to "smelled the spring on the smoky wind". The Spinners made the first popular recording of the song and they sang "Salford wind". This was hardly surprising as the lead singer on the track was Mick Groves, a Salfordian.

The song was therefore written about an English town; but because of the song's later association with The Dubliners and The Pogues, many people tend to think of it as an Irish song, and as such, in Ireland the lyrics are popularly thought to refer to Belfast, Dublin or Derry – a counter-part to the latter being Phil Coulter's "The Town I Loved So Well".

Recordings and performances

Notable renditions of the song include:

• Boston folk singer Jackie Washington/Jack Landron on his Jackie Washington album, 1962
• Esther Ofarim After coming second in the Eurovision Song Contest in 1963 with the song "T'en vas pas", Esther Ofarim released a number of songs in the following years including versions of "Dirty Old Town" in both 1963 and 1964
• The Spinners, The Settlers, Donovan, and Chad & Jeremy, all in 1964 (the Spinners version was later used in the 2008 Terence Davies film about Liverpool, Of Time and the City)
• Roger Whittaker, in 1968
• The Dubliners, on their 1968 album Drinkin' and Courtin', as well as numerous live albums thereafter
• Rod Stewart, on his 1969 first album, An Old Raincoat Won't Ever Let You Down
• The Clancy Brothers, on their 1970 album Flowers in the Valley, sung by Liam Clancy
• Eddie Carr - 45 on People label - unusual for being a R&B/soul version
• The Pogues, on their 1985 second album, Rum, Sodomy and the Lash, the rendition perhaps most familiar to modern audiences
• Graham Norton in his role as Father Noel Furlong in the sitcom series Father Ted
• U2 performed it as a brief seriocomic interlude on their Zoo TV Tour of 1992–1993
• Townes Van Zandt and a limited edition single, recorded September 1996 at Flashpoint Studios in the U.S.
• Breton singer Gilles Servat created two French translations of this song, one for his studio recording Sur les quais de Dublin (1996) and another one for his live album Touche pas à la Blanche Hermine (1998)
• French singer Hugues Aufray translated it as "Chacun Sa Mer" for his album Chacun Sa Mer! (1999)
• The Mountain Goats in 2002
• Swiss Punkt/Irish Folk trio Tortilla Flat on a single CD and an album Dirty Old Town in 2004/2005
• Ted Leo and the Pharmacists, on their 2003 EP, Tell Balgeary, Balgury Is Dead
• Frank Black, on his 2006 double album, Fast Man Raider Man
• Jason Devore, lead singer of Authority Zero on his solo album Conviction in 2006
• Newfoundland Folk band The Irish Descendants on their 1996 album Livin' on the Edge
• Lorraine Leckie, on her 2008 album Four Cold Angels (Lorraine Leckie and her Demons) with Spider Stacy (of the Pogues) and Anton Newcombe (of the Brian Jonestown Massacre)
• Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, on their 2009 live album, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club Live
• Cutthroat Shamrock, on their 2009 album, "Blood Rust Whiskey"
• Korean punk band Crying Nut frequently perform the song live, despite not having a singer fluent in English
• Paolo Nutini recently performed the song Live at Paisley Town Hall in August 2010
• Daniel, Fred and Julie did not include it on their 2009 album, but did include it in their live set
• The song was played during the closing credits in the series finale of Rescue Me.
• Nolwenn Leroy covered the song for her album, Bretonne
• Nahoosfara performed this regularly within the Scottish folk scene, with a different tune than normal