|
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?
|
|
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: 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: 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: 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: 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
So what does that have to do with anything??? |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: Clinton Hammond Date: 25 Jun 02 - 05:25 PM Bit of cross posting there guest... Ya that does help... it doesn't make me appreciate the song much more... but it does help explain the vagaries and such... I guess it's just a poorly written song in my book... Catchy tune though, and it can be played so that it really swings... |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: GUEST Date: 25 Jun 02 - 05:28 PM A poorly written song!?! I've no idea what 'your book' is, but I'd take a guess that it isn't written nearly as well...
|
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: nutty Date: 25 Jun 02 - 05:28 PM Clinton ..... if it doesn't mean anything ...... leave it alone - don't sing it A song is what it is in it's entirity. Some songs mean absolutely nothing .... this happens to mean a great deal to people who have experienced living in such a town. The whole of the North of England was filled with such places when industry was a job provider now call centres tend to take priority. |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: John Routledge Date: 25 Jun 02 - 05:34 PM This thread illustrates perfectly why singers should not sing songs which they cannot understand. It also illustrates that on Mudcat you never know what is an old fashioned wind up!! |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: GUEST Date: 25 Jun 02 - 05:38 PM Sorry you don't like the song. I think it's brilliantly written. Very direct, evocative if you know the area at the time and yet with a genuine lyricism and good imagery. It was originally intended to be sung with a jazz accompaniment but I'm sure it will survive even Clintons lack of respect. It means a lot to me too. |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: Clinton Hammond Date: 25 Jun 02 - 05:47 PM It's a song I don't mind not meaning anything... I don't really care much for it, but like I said above, it can be sorta fun to play and 'swing' to... and audiences do sorta tend to get off on it... I was just wondering if the lyrics seemed as vacuous to anyone else as they seem to me... What was it Edger Allen Poe said? "Music, when combined with a pleasureable idea, is poetry. Music, without the idea is simply music. Without music or an intriguing idea, colour becomes pallor..."
|
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: GUEST,Slickerbill Date: 25 Jun 02 - 05:48 PM I think it's a great song. i'm actually most familiar with Rod Stewart's old version (y'know, back when the guy had some soul; pre "Sexy"...). Sometimes songs are just evocative; give you a sense of being in a certain type of place. I never realized it was about Salford; thought it could relate to just about any steel town in the American north east, for example. I'm a canuck, but actually spent about a week in Salford in the late '70's. By that time they had tried to put in the "fix"; they knocked down much/most(?) of the row housing and put up these huge high rise apartment blocks, which were a complete disaster, destroying any sense of neighborhood or community (or so I was told). Wasn't the population density there the highest in Europe for awhile? Sorry for the thread drift, but thanks for the background on this one. sb |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: Clinton Hammond Date: 25 Jun 02 - 05:51 PM There are places in Windsor (Ontario) where I WISH They'd knock down and put up blocks of flats... I'd prefer that to the current slums that are all over the place... |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: GUEST,Slickerbill Date: 25 Jun 02 - 05:59 PM I know what you mean; inner city Winnipeg was pretty crappy in places too. The problem is that you stack all these people above one another and they become very isolated, and eventually these kinds of development actually can get dangerous. It's kind of like how they seriously screwed up downtown Winnipeg years ago; knocked down the older buildings and put in a bloody mall! It's been a problem area ever since. See, I think a tune like 'Dirty Old Town" is great because in a sense it's timeless. Whether now or 50 years ago, you can appreciate someone wanting to take a good sharp axe/ chainsaw/ jackhammer to some of these places. sb |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: breezy Date: 25 Jun 02 - 06:07 PM an axe has been taken to Salford and it has and is being transformed. The G mex centre is nearby. Costs a bit to park and thats where the commonwealth games will be contested. At least the canadians have a world class women's weightlifter, is she coached by the same guy who coached Ben Johnson? Perhaps Clinton is winding up us Brits or is he a 'thicky' or is this the old peculiar late at night?. Hooray Germany made it.They had a few Dirty old Towns too Goodnight |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: Clinton Hammond Date: 25 Jun 02 - 06:07 PM Timeless as a slum! LOL!!! Interesting concept... ;-)
|
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: Manitas_at_home Date: 25 Jun 02 - 06:17 PM Clinton, I can't see anything wrong with the first verse. He meets the girl by the gasworks, walks down the towpath with her and stops by the factory for a kiss. Is that not simple enough? The last verse is more like Blake's Jerusalem - you couldn't expect him to do that literally. Perhaps change the words 'good sharp axe' to 'JCB' and continue in that vein. I suspect it made more sense to us in the British Isles. I certainly thought it referred to Bethnal Green when I was a child. |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: GUEST Date: 25 Jun 02 - 06:20 PM Breezy, Not sure when you last visited the Salford Precinct, or had a walk around Broughton? It's still very grim, and very far from being 'transformed' It's not all like the Quays you know.. |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: Uncle_DaveO Date: 25 Jun 02 - 06:26 PM ClintonHammond said: What was it Edger Allen Poe said?
"Music, when combined with a pleasureable idea, is poetry. Music, without the idea is simply music. Without music or an intriguing idea, colour becomes pallor..." I think the music Poe was speaking of was the music of the poetry, of which he was a consummate master, not literal music. Read aloud his poem, "Bells", for example. The sounds and the rhythm is what it's about, with very slim content. Dave Oesterreich |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: McGrath of Harlow Date: 25 Jun 02 - 06:44 PM Never try to sing anything you don't understand, that's a good principle. Though I can't think of many songs which are more straightforward in saying what they mean than this.
In a dirty old town, instead of courting amidst fields and woods and running rivers, the way you might in a lot of songs, you have to do it in between factories and gasworks, and down by the old canals that you find in old industrial towns. So that's what the guy in the song is doing - but he's dreaming of a future where things get better and the dirty old town is torn down and a splendid new town is built instead. And at the same time the dirty old town stands for the whole system that needs changing.
"This guy doesn't even seem to know where he is... Is it the gasworks or the factory??? " Well, gasworks and factiories both have outside walls, otherwise the roof wouldn't stay up. So he's in the streets where those walls run, and down by the old canal, where the barges used to collect and deliver for the factories. Those are the places he meets his girl - lovers lane, but it's in back alleys.
It's a song from a time and a viewpoint where people tended to think that the way to make things better was to tear down the old and put up the new, and that the new buildings would inevitably mean a new and better life, and it was all more straighforward.
The irony is that when people sing it now the buildings they often have in mind as the key features of the dirty old town, which need pulling down, are the very buildings that were put up to replace the older ones. I live in a New Town, built from the 50s on, but when people here sing this song they tend to set it here in their minds.
|
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: GUEST Date: 25 Jun 02 - 07:12 PM The biggest irony is that most people think that it's an irish song about dublin |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: firínne Date: 25 Jun 02 - 07:41 PM The way I always knew the song was that the 3rd line in the 3rd verse was: 'Smelt the smoke....in the sulphured wind, dirty old town,etc.' I have also heard it sang 'in the Salford wind, etc.' |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: GUEST Date: 25 Jun 02 - 07:45 PM firínne 'Salford wind' is the correct lyric 'sulphured' and other mishearings are corruptions of the original
|
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: Clinton Hammond Date: 25 Jun 02 - 08:31 PM "Salford wind" Neat... I'm not changin' the way I sing it, but neat... |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: Bob Bolton Date: 25 Jun 02 - 08:53 PM G'day all ... and Clinton, Well, I live about as far from the scene of this song as is possible - but I live in the inner suburbs of Sydney ... on the industrial side of the Parramatta River ... and Dirty Old Town has always looked enough like my surroundings for it to make sense to me! (And my Bolton ancestors came from the Manchester region only 90 years ago.) What is amazing is that such an evocative and poetic song was whipped up by Ewan MacColl at short notice ... to cover a bad scene change in Landscape With Chimneys And I think that was early 1950s ... at the latest ... when Ewan was still principally involved with Joan Littlewood's theatre group (... ?). Regards, Bob Bolton |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: firínne Date: 25 Jun 02 - 08:57 PM Bob...the best things were always written in a hurry! when people have time to start re-phrasing and refining, they lose the essence of what they were saying in the first place! |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: Bob Bolton Date: 25 Jun 02 - 11:34 PM G'day firínne, You are, of course, dead right! I know that things that have been dredged from the last grey cells awake - to get the Mulga Wire issue finished and away ... often look much better than the most prepared and worked-over bits. Anyway, I find it an intensely descriptive song ... and rank it with ewan's First Time Ever ... apparently written ... well, composed, in the course of a UK - California 'phone call to Peggy Seeger, c. 1958! Regards, Bob Bolton |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: Doug Chadwick Date: 26 Jun 02 - 01:56 AM I was born and brought up in the industrial North West of England. From its very first hearing, I have never needed any explanation of this song. The visions conjured up were right there before my eyes. Doug C |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: caz2ufolk Date: 26 Jun 02 - 02:35 AM Clint-He met her by the croft and kissed her by the wall! |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: David el Gnomo Date: 26 Jun 02 - 04:13 AM I was born and have lived on the outskirts of Salford all my life - Swinton to be precise which is now the administrative centre of the Salford metropolitan district. I certainly agree with the interpretations given about the Salford of the past and present! There are exeptions of course but generaly Salford, the city as opposed to the Metro area, was very grim indeed and went from bad to worse when it demolished the terraced slums and built high rise ones. It is getting better. All the advertising for Manchester now shows the Lowry Centre - so at least out neighbours are proud of it! When the Imperial War museum is ready that will add to the attractions as well. My biggest gripe with the 'new' Salford though is although it has a past to be proud of, industry, a large population, a cathederal, eveything a city should have - It has NO city centre to speak of! Nowhere to go. No central focus - apart from the quays, which are just show. Before there was Cross Lane, the Cattle market and Regent Road which were busstling. Now? Nothing! Out of interest, Guest of 6:20pm, yes - the precinct is awful - worst of the 70's! Broughton however - yes again, there are bad bits - but Mrs G and I had a walk up Lower Broughton Road on Sunday night, past Uniteds training ground at the Cliff and finished up with a drink in the Horseshoe on Back Hope Street. Talk about an oasis! Lovely Victorian and Edwardian houses. Imitation gas lights. Cobbled streets - the full urban regeneration thing. It is a fine place to visit - although I'm not sure I'd live there;-) To anyone else intersted in Salford try Starting Here Cheers and if anyone wants any info on Salfords past Elaine (Mrs G) has the REAL knowledge (and local hostory books coming out of here ears!) - PM me. Cheers Dave the Gnome |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: David el Gnomo Date: 26 Jun 02 - 04:24 AM WHOOPS! The above link ain't a bad one (John Adams Music village thing used to be there but I can't find it now!) Anyway, what I REALY meant was - Starting Here Sorry:-( Cheers DtG |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: greg stephens Date: 26 Jun 02 - 09:14 AM Interesting that Swinton produced that gem of rural celebration the "Swinton May Song", and not all that long ago either. Re Dirty Old Town words. My recollecton is that McColl did not sing "Salford wind", though he may have written that for the original production. I'm sure the original recording, andhow he sung it generally, was "smelt the spring on the smoky wind". Made it more universal, and of wider appeal I suppose.That's purely my memory, from way back, by the way. The record's buried in some box, I moved house recently. He made no secret of it's being written about Salford, though, and I think otherpeople started singing "Salford".I certainly remember making that change, in the mid 60's I suppose. Anyone else remember that? |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: David el Gnomo Date: 26 Jun 02 - 10:22 AM We always sang 'Smoky Wind' when I first learned it at school as well. Out of interest (well - to me anyway;-)) there are two Swinton May Songs - The old and the new. A search of the forum will find them both posted from a direct transcription of Chambers book of days by me. It's also odd how things come round in a circle. Pre local gvt. re-org in 1974 Swinton was a Borough Council - nothing to do with Salford. Many years before that however it WAS part of Salford - the Hundred of Salford. And Salford is not only famous for Mr MacColl - We also produced actors like Albet Finney and Ben Kingsley. LS Lowry was a Salford/Swinton man of course but, also getting well known now, is local artist Harold Riley. Salford can also claim the first proper sewage system apparantly - as well as slightly less salubrious claims of the first workhouse and the first all-electric mill! Cheers DtG |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: GUEST,MCP Date: 26 Jun 02 - 10:39 AM I had a look at a whole lot of versions of the song on the net earlier. Hardly anyone gives croft at the end of the 1st line. Most common variations were wall, cry, door and in one I think croft fall (to rhyme with the 3rd line I suppose). The Salford wind was rendered usually as smokey/smoke-filled and sulphured (this latter in Rod Stewart's version). And at least one had a note something like I learned this song in Dublin, the "dirty old town" I think ho-hum covers it. Mick |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: Orac Date: 26 Jun 02 - 11:02 AM I've nerver heard anyone sing anything but "I met my love by the Gasworks Croft" for the first line ... anything else is just plain wrong. ... paints a pretty good picture of what used to be a pretty awful place to try to court a girl. James Miller, who wrote it, obviously was ashamed of his childhood in Salford as he adopted the name Ewan MacColl and pretended to have a Scottish accent. |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: Brakn Date: 26 Jun 02 - 11:26 AM I have McColl/Millar singing it with Peggy Seeger and it's "I found my love, by the gasworks crofts" and "on the smokey wind". |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: Joe_F Date: 26 Jun 02 - 11:29 AM Salford is also the setting of a remarkable play, _A Taste of Honey_ by Shelagh Delaney (1959). It was later made into a movie, which I believe was shot there. It joins on pretty well to the mood of the song. |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: GUEST,Nerd Date: 26 Jun 02 - 11:29 AM I don't think Jimmie Miller (aka Ewan MacColl) was ashamed of his Salford roots-- he was just proud of his Scottish heritage (his mum was from Auchterarder, after all). He was also an internationalist/communist, so his urban working class Salford roots were important to him. Remember, he wrote songs like "The Manchester Rambler" clearly indicating where he was from. I agree it was dodgy to pretend he spoke in broad scots, especially when he imposed his guideline of "don't sing songs from outside your own culture" on others. But I think he saw himself as a Scot by breeding and a man from industrial northern England by birth, and believed he could fit into both categories, not deny one of them. Clint--it's a great song. I agree it's not as sweet as "First time ever I saw your face" or as magical as "Sweet Thames Flow Softly," but it's fierce and emotional and vividly descriptive if you understand the words and have been in towns like that. |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: GUEST,greg stephens Date: 26 Jun 02 - 11:36 AM I think "croft"has a tendency to be displaced because it's a fairly obscure bit of northern dialect, not currently much in use these days onthe Manchester side of the Pennines, though still around more in Yorkshire. Mark Burke,our very Mancunian and youngest member of the Boat Band, not only doesnt sing "croft", he didnt even know what a "croft" was. |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: Orac Date: 26 Jun 02 - 11:40 AM The Manchester Rambler was written for the mass tresspass of Kinderscout in 1933 when James Miller was 19. (He didn't start calling himself MacColl until the 1940's)Quite young to write a song like that... except for the bit about the spotwelder. |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: GUEST,JohnB Date: 26 Jun 02 - 12:45 PM My wife comes from Salford, so she always sings "Salford" wind, always sang the "croft" bit as well. In Ireland recently a group played this bloody awful "swinging" version and sang "DUBLIN wind, we just sat there and cringed. We courted mostly in Folk Clubs, and a little bit on Kersal Moor. JohnB |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: greg stephens Date: 26 Jun 02 - 01:01 PM Are you sure about McColl writing the Manchester Rambler in 1933, Orac? It seems a very unlikely bit of writing for a teenager. Are you sure it wasnt written for the Ballad of John Axon which would have been in the 50's? The spotwelder sounds like a very knowing and semi-humorous bit of Socialist realism and not the work of an ingenuous 19 year old.Mind you, he was a hell of a good writer, and if he'd hung around in the right sort of left-wing mancunian circles as a kid it's not beyond the realms of possibility. Where did you get that bit of information? |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: McGrath of Harlow Date: 26 Jun 02 - 01:04 PM I'm pretty certain he wrote the Manchester Rambler pre-war. |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: GUEST,MCP Date: 26 Jun 02 - 01:20 PM According to WCML - Ewan McColl - Singer & Songs he wrote the Manchester Rambler in 1932, when he was 17, to celebrate the mass trespass of Kinder Scout - the anniversary of which was made much of just recently (including the use of the Manchester Rambler). Mick |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: Clinton Hammond Date: 26 Jun 02 - 02:14 PM So, it sounds like this song might make more sense to me if I had the proper lyrics... can someone post 'em?
|
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: Bob Bolton Date: 26 Jun 02 - 09:21 PM G'day MCP, Ewan also gave the 1932 date in his old song book. Regards, Bob Bolton |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: Jon Bartlett Date: 27 Jun 02 - 02:30 AM The tune Ewan set the song to is an American variant of "The Wife of Usher's Well" (Child 79). |
|
Subject: Lyr Add: DIRTY OLD TOWN (Ewan MacColl) From: Wolfgang Date: 27 Jun 02 - 05:38 AM Lyrics as in the new Ewan MacColl songbook (which by the way is not reliable):
DIRTY OLD TOWN Wolfgang |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: Declan Date: 27 Jun 02 - 06:00 AM By coincidence the movie version of "A taste of Honey" was shown on RTE (Irish National TV) last night. I didn't watch it all, but from what I did see the setting seemed to echo the words of the song very well - scenes of people walking/ running along canal banks lined with factories, gas yards etc. Incidentally when I visited the North of England I expected everything to look very grey, but was pleasantly surprised. I think I'd seen too many of those early 60s Black and White "gritty reality" movies. |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: Wolfgang Date: 27 Jun 02 - 06:07 AM Note in the MacColl songbook: This superb song was written to cover a scene-change in a play which was set in Salford, Lancashire, the city which provided the philosopher Friedrich Engels with most of the information for his book 'The condition of the working class in 1844'. Wolfgang |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: Joe_F Date: 27 Jun 02 - 09:04 AM _The Essential Ewan MacColl Songbook_ confirms the date 1932 for "Manchester Rambler". The copyright date, however, is 1978. Incidentally, and IMO even more astonishingly, Delaney wrote _A Taste of Honey_ when she was 18. Evidently, if you are brought up in Salford, you learn as much in the one-year time as the other ones do in five. |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: Snuffy Date: 27 Jun 02 - 09:12 AM Wasn't the earlier "Love On The Dole" also set in Salford? How many other towns have three plays? |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: Clinton Hammond Date: 27 Jun 02 - 10:51 AM WG?? How unreliable is the new EmC songbook? Are those lyrics you posted 'close enough'?
|
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: Wolfgang Date: 27 Jun 02 - 11:05 AM Clinton, I have posted what I have found in the songbook. As for reliability, I have found several misprints of names and there is a website already listing several other errors. Make your guess what that could mean regarding lyrics. Wolfgang |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: manitas_at_work Date: 27 Jun 02 - 11:11 AM How many towns have three plays? Lots, I should imagine. Isn't Casey's 'Juno and the Paycock' part of a trilogy? Then there's Arnold Wesker's trilogy set in East London. |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: Clinton Hammond Date: 27 Jun 02 - 11:27 AM Fair nuff WG... Ta! ;-)
|
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: GUEST,Nerd Date: 27 Jun 02 - 01:45 PM In its defense, the EM songbook is huge, and was bound to contain some errors. The website listing the errors is maintained by Peggy Seeger, as a means of addressing them. it seems to me she is being more responsible than most editors! Also, some discepancies may reflect differences in the "official" verses as published, vs. the way EM actually sang the song after it was in his repertoire for a while. To paint it in broad strokes as unreliable may not be fair. |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: Wolfgang Date: 27 Jun 02 - 02:09 PM I think you are right in your defense, Nerd, and I sounded harsher than I had wanted. So please let me add that I am more than glad to have bought that book and that many many aspects of it (especially, but not only the notes to the songs and the remarks about tunes and where they come from) show a lot of love to detail and accuracy. This songbook has more information about the songs than most other songbooks I have bought. It belongs into the top ten percent of singer/songwriter songbooks in my opinion. (the spelling of the few German names, which was in my mind when I wrote the other post is awful, but from that minor detail one should not infer to accuracy in general) Wolfgang |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: Llanfair Date: 27 Jun 02 - 05:42 PM Declan, Things were very grey in the early '50's in the city, there wasn't a lot of colour about. All the city centre buildings were a uniform black....I can remember being really surprised when Manchester Museum was cleaned up, and it was SANDSTONE!!! As for smelling the spring on the air, our Ewan was quite right, but I think you had to be young and optimistic to smell it properly through the polluted air. I was brought up close to the Mersey, and that, too, was black and looked thick and poisonous.....probably was!!! Cheers, Bron. |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: Lyrical Lady Date: 28 Jun 02 - 12:55 AM Thank you Clinton for starting this thread. My buddy Danny Burns used to sing this song and I always enjoyed the tune but now I know so much more about it. Great stuff. LL |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: Dave Bryant Date: 28 Jun 02 - 05:50 AM I didn't realise that Jimmy (sorry Ewan) was actually into folk song as early as that either. His original occupation was theatrical direction. I once heard him say that his inspiration for "The Manchester Rambler" was the late Afred Wainwright - although he originally came from Blackburn - somewhat north of Manchester. |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: Hrothgar Date: 28 Jun 02 - 07:56 AM Two things: I think "Landscape With Chimneys" was in 1948. ..and I have always thought it should be "gasworks tall." This fits in with the rhyme ("wall") and also with the architecture of gasworks. There is as much poetry as there is songwriting in it. |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: Watson Date: 28 Jun 02 - 08:00 AM Fits in with the rhyme??? What rhyme? |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: David el Gnomo Date: 28 Jun 02 - 11:01 AM BTW - forgot to say that the gasworks is still there! And its croft. I pass it twice a day. There was a fire in the scrapyard next door some time last year. That was fun. When they found there was not enough mains pressure they managed to drop the level of the Irwell pumping water out of it onto the gasometers to keep them cool. I would have thought pumping Irwell water onto a fire was pretty dangerous but I guess they must have known what they were doing...! Cheers Dave the Gnome |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: Susanne (skw) Date: 28 Jun 02 - 04:47 PM Dave, in my recording of Ewan as well as the five I have by other people, they all sing 'croft'. I think you must have got your version from someone more bent on 'proper' rhyming that Ewan ... |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: GUEST,Jim Date: 28 Jun 02 - 04:53 PM What is a croft (in this context)? Guest says that "The gas yard croft is a bit of spare ground in front of the gas works" Greg says that "it's a fairly obscure bit of northern dialect, not currently much in use" Was Guest right? I can't find any mention of such a meaning in any of my dictionaries. Jim |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: David el Gnomo Date: 28 Jun 02 - 05:19 PM A croft, in this case, is definitely a bit of spare ground. Usualy waste ground. Imagine old bricks, bicycle frames and tyres with rose bay willow herb and couch grass growing through them and yoou have a Salford croft! Cheers DtG |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: Bullfrog Jones Date: 28 Jun 02 - 07:22 PM I've avoided this thread until now, because (a) it 's bloody obvious what it means, and (b)I've heard it sung badly too many times ever to want to hear it again. I now concede that (a) it helps if you grew up in an industrial inner city (Birmingham, in my case) and (b) I was right the first time! BJ |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: firínne Date: 28 Jun 02 - 07:23 PM A croft is a small piece of land adjoining a house, or a small farm. But like Dave says, in the case of Salford, it would be waste or derelict land. [You forgot to add the supermarket trolley, Dave!!] |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: GUEST Date: 28 Jun 02 - 07:37 PM Recently home from a pub singalong in Sheffied (30 odd miles from Salford) Depressed to have to report that it was introduced as an Irish song with "a Dublin wind" |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: Malcolm Douglas Date: 28 Jun 02 - 09:13 PM Oh dear... Please name the guilty parties (or at least the pub) so that I can embarrass them when they are least expecting it! |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: ard mhacha Date: 29 Jun 02 - 05:00 PM As long ago as 1957 I heard Dominick Behan on the old BBC Third Programme Singing dirty old town. This was the first time I heard the song and even being introduced to the song by Dominick`s awful singing, it has always remained a favourite. Ard Mhacha. |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: Hrothgar Date: 30 Jun 02 - 05:26 AM Dominic Behan and Ewan MacColl put out a recording many years ago called "The Singing Streets" which compared their urban upbringings and the songs they remembered. I only have a second hand tape of it, so I don't know any more about the it's provenance. |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: Clinton Hammond Date: 30 Jun 02 - 02:27 PM So I sang it yesterday at my matinee, with the 'proper' lyrics, and man oh man, did -I- get the hairy eyeball from some folks... So you folks out there who say idiotic stuff like "It's obvious what it means" can pucker up... I am NOT the only person who knows 'wrong' lyrics to this song... It might be a regional thing... maybe everyone in this area has the song screwed up...
|
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: Phillip Date: 01 Jul 02 - 01:31 PM MacColl was publicity officer for the mass trespass on Kinder, and The Manchester Rambler came from that role. I haven't bought the new Ewan MacColl songbook, but I have one from 1963 which contains only one other pre-War song in its collection of 51, the not so great Plodder Seam. So, perhaps Ewan's exploits in Catterick and such places from 1939 onwards were a time for artistic development, although The Second Front Song, and Browned Off are not among his best. Like others here from Manchester and the sprawl around it I feel Dirty Old Town is an excellent song. The best version I know is at the end of The Singing Streets, far better than the more arranged versions Ewan recorded later. He prefaces it with this passage: "The minstrels go, and the searchers take over. It is their world now... a world where adolescents walk in an ecstasy of loneliness or stand in idle groups where streetlamps shed their pools of light... a world where young Prometheus becomes a trembling-kneed Apollo on the gasworks' croft." O to be young again on that very croft, by Tyldesley's flowering redbrick walls! To kick the can across the waste, crying "Best!", to be pulled back into the shadows by womanly-jiggly women with hungry... Oops.
|
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: Phillip Date: 01 Jul 02 - 01:45 PM Rod Stewart was mentioned earlier, and I was reminded of a song of his I was discussing with my daughter this weekend. I think he used the tune of Farewell He, for his song Farewell, and just straightened it out a bit. Those with better musical ears might prove me wrong.
|
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: IanC Date: 08 Jul 02 - 06:32 AM Manitas Just to put the record straight, the Wesker Trilogy is set in East Anglia (a region) not East London.#
:-) |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: Manitas_at_home Date: 08 Jul 02 - 09:18 AM I remember it as being about East London with the thirs part set in a housing development in the suburbs? See http://www.methuen.co.uk/weskerplays1.html. |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: IanC Date: 08 Jul 02 - 11:40 AM Manitas Well, "Chicken Soup with Barley" is set in East London, but the other two Roots and I'm Talking About Jerusalem are both set in Norfolk with no real reference to East London at all. I read all three plays at school in the late '60s but I could only really bring to mind "Roots" for some reason, so I suppose we're both wrong!!!
;-)
|
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: Manitas_at_home Date: 08 Jul 02 - 05:17 PM I think everyone read them at school in the late 60's. Weren't they set plays for O-level? I can't remember that much about them now. Obviously the first location stuck in my mind most, being an East Ender myself. |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: McGrath of Harlow Date: 08 Jul 02 - 06:21 PM Once again, Clinton "Never try to sing anything you don't understand, that's a good principle."
If you find it difficult to understand it, then presumably you aren't the only one in your part of the world with the same difficulty, whatever that may be.
Is it something to do with people needing to take things literally, and not recognising figurative language? So that when the song talks about chopping down a dead true, as an image for demolishing old buildings and an old community, people get confused?
Maybe there are parts of the world where that way of using language really isn't done too much, or rather where the expectation is that it needs to be signalled, so that people are alerted to it. There was a discussion here about irony recently which got into that idea. |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: Yorkshire Tony Date: 13 Aug 02 - 10:28 PM Croft was certainally still in use in Leeds where I grew up - in a house called "Woodcroft". "Smelt the spring on the smokey wind" - the smells of industry were ever present but you still got the occasional wiff of a blossom tree or other scent of spring from someone's garden - perhaps this was what inspired the line. I've often pondered "Spring's a girl in the street at night" - to me it conjours an image of something delicate a beautiful against the dirty backdrop of the town. Like Lanfair in Salford, I can remember when all the public buildings in the centre of Leeds were black with soot - my mother used to think they were built of coal when she was a girl. |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: GUEST,J.A. Gilbert, daughter of late James A. Gilb Date: 10 Oct 02 - 12:48 PM hello!... - i was looking up the origins of 'dirty old town' out of curiosty - my dad passed away dec 05/01, and he used to sing this song ALL the time, in fact my friends and i inherited it as a 'leaving the pub drunk' kind of song a few years back and sang it whilst drunkenly exiting many pubs, both here in canada and visits to the uk! (mum & dad came to canada in '64) i just came across your forum - well, thanks for satisfying my curiosity! i've never posted a reply in any forum before, but i had to put in my two cents for this old gem - i think it was 'nutty' and a nearby post from a GUEST who both gave this old tune the thumbs up, and obviously it has a lot of meaning and emotion for me, too, as it sure did for my dad, so cheers to all you guys who actually LIKE the song! i guess i just wanted to confirm that dirty old town was written in/about salford; that's where my dad was from. the part irish, part limey band 'the pogues' covered it, much to my amusement - i thought it was great, and gave a tape to my dad and he and his pals thought it brilliant! imagine me and my dad listening to the same band, and listening to dirty old bloody town! they also did tunes like 'waltzing matilda, too!) so a new generation of pub goers adopted 'dirty' thinking it is an old irish tune (including some of my friends, whom i had the opportunity and salfordian insight to set straight!!) anyway, i can't believe anyone actually thinks this is a badly written song! even if you don't know what a 'gasworks croft' is (the pogues changed it to wall, coz i guess they didn't know either!) it's still a fine old tune! i've love it since i was a kid, and i think it makes a lot of sense. i saw, with my dad, how they have 'gentrified' the dirty old place, too. i'm not a big fan of 'gentrification', per se, but i'm glad that salford has maintained and improved it's identity, rather than been let run down, or just swallowed up altogether in good old Manchester (me mum's from there!) i'm glad there's actually people out there still talking about this tune! thanks again! |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: Deda Date: 10 Oct 02 - 02:05 PM Dirty Old Town is also mentioned here. Bull Am (still busing in France, but only for another week and a half) still gets asked to play it all the time. |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: Seamus Kennedy Date: 10 Oct 02 - 06:15 PM Clinton, you could explain the song to your audience with the information that's been supplied here; and so that you can sing it convincingly, picture in your mind the decrepit industrial parts of Windsor. Works for me. Not Windsor, but Belfast in my case. Seamus |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: Clinton Hammond Date: 10 Oct 02 - 06:18 PM "explain the song to your audience with the information that's been supplied here" Most bar/pub audiences don't give a rat-ass... I was more curious for my own mental health... "picture in your mind the decrepit industrial parts of Windsor" There are parts of Windsor that aren't??? LOL |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: Leadfingers Date: 10 Oct 02 - 08:18 PM I was dragged up in Birmingham(Warwickshire,U.k.)and never had any difficulty with this song until the Irish took it up.IT AINT IRISH! its English with a Scots influence. I can appreciate that anyone from the other side of the pond can have troub;e with this,cos it is SO English and not at all American. |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: The Admiral Date: 11 Oct 02 - 09:20 AM Give 'em hell Leadfingers! Why don't people just accept that 'Dirty Old Town' is a beautiful love song written about one of the few real things in Ewan McColls' life - he was born and did actually grow up in Salford, the son of expatriot Scot parents. As much as I admire what he achieved in his life, most of what he was after Salford was fake - change of name, phoney accent, change of nationality, so on and so forth. But to get back to the song, if you don't understand it, leave it to those who do love and appreciate it. Bring up those whistles Leadfingers and we'll give it another go! The Admiral, in the not so industrial Windsor, Berkshire. |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: McGrath of Harlow Date: 12 Oct 02 - 08:02 AM Expatriate - expatriot would mean something completely different. (Only it's a mistake that seems to be sneaking in quite a lot these days.) |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: belfast Date: 12 Oct 02 - 11:37 AM I can understand some people's irritation at the cultural imperialism of the paddies. And "Dirty Old Town" wouldn't be the only MacColl song that has been hibernicized. I've heard that "The Shoals Of Herring" has been sung as "The Shores Of Erin". And I lately heard a recent recording of "Dirty Old Town" where the words are occasionally changed to "Dirty Ardoyne". But, after all, it's not like the Elgin Marbles. When we steal the song it's still there where it started. It's a victimless crime. As for the expatriate/ expatriot thing (and my computer refuses to recognize the existence of the latter), I recently pointed out that misuse or misspelling in a friend's MA thesis. She looked at me as if I was the dreariest pedant who ever lived. |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: Wotcha Date: 13 Oct 02 - 09:41 AM I first heard this song in Germany a decade ago ... sung on European MTV by the ... Pogues. Probably explains why it got it's "Irish" connection. Yep and it's on a long fogotten music video with a suitably derelict venue and lead singer ... Great song. Cheers, Brian |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: GUEST,wagga wagga Date: 01 Sep 06 - 04:34 AM Hi from Australia... I lived in Belfast for some years and heard 'Dirty Ardoyne' playing on the radio... could anyone help me with the name of the singer. |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: GUEST,KT Date: 01 Sep 06 - 05:09 AM The sad thing for me living on the edge of Salford is hearing pub bands from Salford singing the song in a cod Irish accent in keeping with the general belief these days by the general public (including many Mancunians) that it's an Irish song! We really have the Pogues to thank for that one, AND Shane McGowan sings "gasworks wall"...... Incidentally, regarding the reference to the "old canal", the old Manchester, Bolton and Bury canal passes through Salford and was largeley disused by the 1930's. |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: weelittledrummer Date: 01 Sep 06 - 05:18 AM Bloody incredible... all these songwriters and people avowedly interested in performing and folk music.... Ewan wouldn't have given a tinkers todger if you thought it was about Blackpool or Bangkok - and that's why people all over the world respond to it. It is about the lyricism of being in love, and how when you are in love, particularly young love - one's surroundings acquire a veneer of poetry. Thus the bleak urban landscape becomes the very stuff of poetry. Its that feeling of what being young was like, as we like to remember it. |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: GUEST,KT Date: 01 Sep 06 - 05:36 AM What is the problem with people wanting to understand something of the background, circumstances, or whatever inspired somebody to write a song? Anyway, I was under the impression the McColl had a thing about people only singing songs relevant to their area and upbringing - or something like that - though I believe that he didn't consider that the rule applied to him? |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: manitas_at_work Date: 01 Sep 06 - 05:45 AM As has been pointed out here before, that wasn't so much McColl as the club he was leading and the point was to stop the inanity of people singing songs in languages and dialects they didn't know well enough to give justice to the song. It had the effect of making people look harder for songs from their own culture. |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: GUEST,KT Date: 01 Sep 06 - 05:57 AM Thanks for that, Manitas. It kind of goes full circle with my earlier comment about people from Salford singing Dirty old Town in an Irish accent, doesn't it! |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: David el Gnomo Date: 01 Sep 06 - 05:59 AM I had all but forgotten about this thread and have just re-read it with interest because of one of those co-incidences that crop up! Last weekend I had the pleasure of hosting Dick and Susan as part of their UK visit. Monday being bank holiday we had a bit of a drive round (looking for a traffic jam:-) ). Dick mentioned he was in the process of re-releasing some MacColl albums so I thought a MacColl tour was in order. I now live about 2 miles from the gasworks croft (was a car dealership until about 6 months ago - now disused again) so that was the first port of call. The old canal. as KT says, is the MB&B. Disused indeed BUT in the process of being re-opened so the new flats (Middleton Locks) are not defying the trade descriptions act by advertising as 'waterside development'! Go figure as they say over the water. Furthest we went was the quarry (now a car park) which was the start of the mas trespass. Did you know btw the Dirty old town is one of the few songs that has no rhyming in it at all? Well, town and town in the refrain but I don't count that. Cheers DtG |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: David el Gnomo Date: 01 Sep 06 - 06:00 AM Oh yes - 100! :D |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: weelittledrummer Date: 01 Sep 06 - 06:39 AM Well no - obviously it does no harm to know what a gas works croft is. However all these posts ....without anybody talking about the central theme. And really you could live surrounded by haystacks and pagodas, and never see or experience salford - and yet still identify with the narrator of this song. |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: Paco Rabanne Date: 01 Sep 06 - 06:43 AM I live in a haystack and I understood it. |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: Betsy Date: 01 Sep 06 - 07:57 AM Wee Little drummer says " Ewan wouldn't have given a tinkers todger if you thought it was about Blackpool or Bangkok - and that's why people all over the world respond to it." and I suppose you're dead right. Trouble is - Salford and sulphured can be very close in pronounciation if said quickly especially in various accents. What causes a little confusion for me reading this thread ,is , I learned the song in the early 60's , from where I can't remember, and I always sang sulphured wind. It made sense after the steam train going past, though, I always appreciated that the song was about Salford. It further begs the question, why did so many people used to discuss which town the song was written about, if, it already contained the name Salford.,Curious. I don't think it did but I'm willing to recieve informed advice. No matter, On the subject of croft - it has a proper meaning in Scotland, but in the N.East where I live , we would use the word " common". A piece of inner-city scrub, waste or derelict land, on occasions used by Gypsies , Fairground shows, bonfires etc. and all the other dumping described by others earlier in this thread. I suppose McColl was painting a picture of the grim reality of growing up in a dirty Northern town, much as L.S.Lowry did with a paint brush. We must remember that most Northern and many Midland towns and cities were /are heavy industrial towns especially up to the 1970's, and to varying degrees, were filthy places to live because of the use of coal, to power the vast industries. I was born in the late 40's, in a steel town and it was certainly a dirty old town. A good comparison perhaps of the American and the British way of looking at this type of song - give Billy Joels " Allenstown " a listen. Yeh I know thsi is a Folk site, but ..... Cheers Betsy |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: GUEST,number 6 Date: 01 Sep 06 - 08:31 AM Live in Saint John New Brunswick (Canada) for a while and you will understand. sIx |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: GUEST,KT Date: 01 Sep 06 - 09:52 AM I suppose the thing with Dirty O T is that the words conjure up such a vivid picture of a town in the era of steam and old industry, and although it's quite correct to say that this is peripheral to the core meaning of the song and could be applied to any industrial town, knowing that it's inspiration was somewhere real you can relate to even if you're miles away and can only see it on a map, somehow seems to matter. End of long sentence. |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: David el Gnomo Date: 01 Sep 06 - 11:21 AM Seeing as you are on the edge of Salford, KT, do we know you at Swinton Folk Club? If not come along one Monday - The White Lion on the A6 near where Swinton Market used to be. Make yourself known and I might even buy you a pint:-) Not that I would blatantly plug our club on someone elses thread... Cheers DtG |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: Brakn Date: 01 Sep 06 - 02:45 PM Hummmphhhh You've never bought me a pint. :-( |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: David el Gnomo Date: 01 Sep 06 - 03:57 PM You never asked, B! Next time - remind me:-) |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: GUEST,Ed Date: 01 Sep 06 - 04:45 PM I too had forgotten this thread. I remember Dave (the Gnome) pointing out where the Gas Works were. Next to Reg Vardy's if I remember (though that's obviously changed now). Going back to the original post, I can only say (in my best Lancastrian): Clinton is a wanker, tra la la la Clinton is a wanker, tra la la la Thank you, I feel better now. |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: andymac Date: 02 Sep 06 - 03:26 AM I used to live in the east end of Glasgow and often walked a couple of miles to school each morning past a gasworks (still there). I used to sing this song even then, without knowing who's song it was or even where I'd picked up the fragment from. The song always seemed highly relevant then and still does now. As many others have said already it informs/reminds us of finding love, beauty, happiness even amongst slums and smoke and steam. I am only talking of going to school in the mid-70s and it wasn't till much later that I realised it was a McColl song and in turn has led me to others of his, including the Radio Ballad series. The meaning of the songto me and it seems to others here, is universal. If you don't get it or don't appreciate it? Don't sing it. Andy |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: Dave Hanson Date: 02 Sep 06 - 10:10 AM In the excellent film by Tim May, The Ballad Of Ewan MacColl, talking about his childhood in Salford Ewan mentions " a cinder croft or recreation ground, like the one in ' Dirty Old Town ' " eric |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: GUEST,Steve - Detmold, Germany Date: 12 Jan 07 - 03:09 AM Born in Liverpool in the mid fifties I like many others in the north have no dificulty in relating to the lyrics and sentiments of this great song. I can remember my recently passed on farther talking of the heart and soul of a city being ripped out by well meanibng soviet style city planners who, in colusion with Poulson (remember the scandal) concreted anything and everything over. The reference to choping down like an old oak tree could be the tall chimmneys (Smoke stacks for our cousins across the pond) that where left from the days of steam. Or his dismay at the loss of such fond memouries being eroded by the onslought of new concreat high rise thanks to the eformentioned council planners and of course poulson. Yes, my bet is tall chimneys or Concrete high rise. |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: Scrump Date: 12 Jan 07 - 04:43 AM Just read this thread for the first time. I find it incredible that someone would complain about the song not making sense to the audience - if it doesn't go down well, then don't sing it there again. If it doesn't make sense to you, don't sing it (McGrath's principle above). Sing something else that you understand, and they like. The Pogues cannot be blamed for the song being thought of as an Irish or Dublin song, as a couple of people above seem to believe. Many well known Irish versions had been done long before theirs, by artists including the Dubliners and Dominic Behan (back in the 1960s when the Pogues were pretty young I would guess). I think a lot of people probably first heard the song from these artists and just wrongly assumed it was an Irish song. I don't see the problem with saying "I met my love by the gasworks wall, Dreamed a dream by the old canal, I kissed my girl by the factory wall". We can infer that he met his girl in one place and moved to another before kissing her. Does a songwriter always have to spell everything out? Maybe MacColl should have written: "I met my love by the gasworks wall, Dreamed a dream by the old canal, which we walked along to the factory, and then I kissed my girl by the factory wall" Well, it might be clearer but doesn't scan so well :-) |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: GUEST,Shimrod Date: 12 Jan 07 - 04:49 AM "The reference to choping down like an old oak tree could be the tall chimmneys ..." In the 'Essential Ewan MacColl Songbook', Oak, 2001, p.364 the words to this particulr verse are as follows: "I'm going to make a good sharp axe, Shining steel tempered in the fire, We'll chop you down, like an old dead tree." No mention of oak trees (those wankers 'The Pogues' probably added one of them). As I understand it, the "good sharp axe" is socialism, which will be used to chop down the "dead tree" of capitalism and, by extension, one of the products of capitalism, the slums of Salford. As for Poulson type property developers, I can report that they're still very much active in Salford, and other parts of the North West, and local authorities are now, more than ever, nothing more than their 'hand maidens' and 'rubber stampers'. |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: RobbieWilson Date: 12 Jan 07 - 04:51 AM The fact that so many people recognize and identify with the images painted in this song is why it is so good. People making it their own by changing the odd word ( Dublin, Ardoyne) is fine by me. I think, though, that " Salford" probably came in instead of "smoky" by Smartarses showing off their superior knowledge and putting down people who thought the song was written about somewhere else. If you don't appreciate the song, leave it alone. Many people really love this song, in different modes and over several generations so perhaps it has got something going for it which some people don't recognize. |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: Scrump Date: 12 Jan 07 - 06:33 AM Yes, I think MacColl probably realised the song could apply to almost any industrial town, not just specifically Salford, so he didn't write anything too specific about locations, etc. I would prefer to sing "smoky" than "Salford", "Dublin", or any other specific town name. "Sulphured" does sound like a mondegreen to me, invented by someone mishearing "Salford" (possibly someone who didn't know of its existence). |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: GUEST,Grimmy Date: 12 Jan 07 - 07:20 AM As an aside: The word Croft (Saxon) denotes a parcel of land adjoining a homestead or Toft (Norse) - hence Ashcroft, Lowestoft etc It occurs in many medieval charters but its continued use, meaning 'spare ground', seems to be confined mainly to the northern counties of England. |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: IanC Date: 12 Jan 07 - 07:24 AM Its meaning as spare space within a building, however, continues throughout England ... see Undercroft. :-) |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: Paul Burke Date: 12 Jan 07 - 07:37 AM There was that hymn parody: On the croft, on the croft, Where we played pitch-and-toss, And a copper come and chased us away, So I 'it 'im on the yed With a bloody big lump of lead And the slimy little bugger run away. |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: GUEST,Grimmy Date: 12 Jan 07 - 07:40 AM Undercroft, though, has a different origin: ETYMOLOGY: 14c: from Dutch crofte a vault, cavern, etc, from Latin crypta crypt. (Chambers Dictionary) |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: GUEST Date: 12 Jan 07 - 07:52 AM "There was that hymn parody" I've heard that somewhere - wasn't it on 'Deep Lancashire'? |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: GUEST,guest squeezeboxhp at work Date: 12 Jan 07 - 08:13 AM in yorkshire just over the hill from Salford CROFT as in tentercroft was the field where the woven cloth was streched on the tenter frames after fulling and stone posts with square holes in can still be seen in fields around huddersfield so croft must mean field adjacent to a working area |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: folk1e Date: 13 Jan 07 - 09:53 PM I was under the impresion that the line "saw a train set the night on fire" was the chemical spillage (sulphur?) on to the tracks being ignighted by the following train's wheels! The fire brigade at eccles were well known for having to "clean it up". Regardless of the validity of the lines...... it is a cracking song! |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: Jim Lad Date: 14 Jan 07 - 01:50 AM It's a very clear picture of the town that I and many others like me, was born in. Nothing more, nothing less. Just a perfect image in time. |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: GUEST Date: 14 Jan 07 - 04:35 AM People seem to be complicating what, for me, is a very stark, simple picture of any industrial town, in this case in the first half of the twentieth century. As with Jim Lad it is very much like the city (Liverpool) I grew up in. Whatever the origins of the word, the gasworks croft was simply a piece of waste ground where courting couples used to go for privacy in a busy urban environment. I remember what we called 'the rec', which I think was short for 'recreation ground', a few hudred yards away from Liverpool Football Ground, which was a favourite meeting place for couples when I was growing up. The train 'setting the night on fire' was a steam train; it was possible to see into the driver's open cab where he and his mate would open the door of the firebox and shovel coal in, lighting the night up. Anybody who has seen the documentary film 'Night Mail' will know exactly what I mean I can still remember Salford the way MacColl described it before they knocked down the old terraced houses and smoke blackened factories and put up the soulless high-rise flats. MacColl's attitude to his childhood and youth in Salford was very much love-hate, as was made clear in Tim May's film, and this comes over perfectly in the song, which is why it is such a good one. Jim Carroll |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: Gazza2 Date: 14 Jan 07 - 11:48 AM And did they really have to put detergent in the Irwell when filming Hobson's Choice to make it seem dirtier?? |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: Charley Noble Date: 14 Jan 07 - 12:03 PM Not a bad thread about the origins of this fine song. It would use some editing...but what the heck! Thanks, Clinton, for provoking this response. Cheerily, Charley Noble |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: Tootler Date: 14 Jan 07 - 12:26 PM Gazza2 wrote "And did they really have to put detergent in the Irwell when filming Hobson's Choice to make it seem dirtier??" No! It was already there. |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: Charley Noble Date: 14 Jan 07 - 04:31 PM As Bob Bolton posted above, this song had its origin as a cover for a scene change in a radical theatrical production: Works such as Landscape With Chimneys and Johnny Noble became staple fare at the Theatre Workshop, and it was for the former that the song "Dirty Old Town" was written to cover a rather inexpert scene change [Denselow 1989]. THE BRITISH FOLK REVIVAL: 1944-2002 by Mike Brocken provides a detailed analysis of this early period of the folk song revival and its association with the Workers' Music Association. One may quarrel with some of his conclusions but the details are fascinating. Charley Noble |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: GUEST,the twangman Date: 14 Jan 07 - 06:27 PM the dubliners popularised "dirty old town" in ireland, and as a youngster listening to the dubliners recording of dirty old town, i did not know what a "croft" was. even though there was nothing wrong with luke's diction on the recording, i could not hear "croft" in the first line, i didn't know that was what he was saying. but on the dubliners original recording of the song (now that i know what the lyrics are) luke clearly says "gasworks croft", but when repeating the first verse at the end of the song, he fumbled and said "factory wall" by mistake. so my theory is, because people (in ireland) understood "wall", they thought "croft" in the first line was a slurring of "wall" and that's why "gasworks wall" is widely sung nowadays (although i always make a point of singing "croft" myself"). |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: Tootler Date: 15 Jan 07 - 11:55 AM I was at Salford University in the mid 60's which is where I first heard the song (sung by the Spinners, I think) and the words fitted the city as I knew it in those days. But as Jim Carrol rightly said, the words would fit any industrial town in those days. To expand on my response to Gazza2, there was a weir on the river Irwell close to one of the buildings where I used to have a fair number of my lectures and the churning of the water over the weir created a raft of dense yellow-brown foam of considerable thickness on the surface. This was a result of discharges from a dye works further up river and it stopped when the dye works closed. I never really gave a thought to the "train set the night on fire" line as it so perfectly described a steam train working hard. A hard working steam loco would chuck out sparks from its chimney which could be seen at night. In addition if the train was a passenger train you would also have the effect of the lights from the carriages. |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: Scrump Date: 15 Jan 07 - 12:04 PM And with a steam train, if the fireman was stoking the fire, the light from that would light up the footplate with an orange/red glow, with sparks from the coal dust flying up into the air. This is the picture I have in my mind when I hear the song. |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: Jim Lad Date: 15 Jan 07 - 12:08 PM And stopping to lean against The Gas Works Wall with your girl, on the way home from the dancing. It's all there. |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: billbunter Date: 15 Jan 07 - 01:54 PM An old colleague from Salford who met Mcall and watched hin sing it in Salford told me he wrote it in three minutes in the back of the van before the theatre play. (my mate lived in the street next to Mcall's father and he first heard his Scots father using the expression 'croft' as a wee laddie. It was often used on the streets there. It was also originally done in the play as a 'swing' number and I think - but can't be certain it had a saxophone on it in the original. |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: JeremyC Date: 15 Jan 07 - 04:35 PM I think it's a good song and makes a reasonable amount of sense, but I have to say that the Pogues did it better. Then again, I have yet to hear a recording of Ewan MacColl that I can stand to listen to. It seems like the stuff of his that I've heard is either horrendously americanized or sung in this ridiculous patois that's about as effective and listenable as a blackface minstrel performance. If he's recorded anything--even one song--that doesn't fit into those two categories, I'd like to hear it, but for the time being I'll listen to other people performing his songs. |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: IanC Date: 15 Jan 07 - 04:38 PM Have you ever listened to The Radio Ballads? |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: Big Phil Date: 15 Jan 07 - 04:44 PM Tootler The old steam trains also had the habit of setting fire to the undergrowth at the side of the tracks when it was dry, due to the sparks. It would be banned these days, health and safety and the like. Oh for the auld days............ |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: Tootler Date: 15 Jan 07 - 05:25 PM Big Phil, I remember. You would often see the undergrowth smoldering as the train went past, especially in cuttings. It was an effective way of keeping the undergrowth in check <g> Of course these days you are not allowed to do anything that might pose a risk - a bit like PC really, but that's a topic for another thread. |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: GUEST,Shimrod Date: 15 Jan 07 - 05:55 PM "Then again, I have yet to hear a recording of Ewan MacColl that I can stand to listen to." Funny that, 'JeremyC', I have yet to hear a recording of The Pogues that I can stand to listen to. I should be magnanimous and say that 'it's all a question of taste' - or some other such weak-kneed piffle. But I won't - The Pogues were a noisy and profoundly unmusical pop group (whose reputation is already on the wane). Whereas MacColl was a genius in both the world of the theatre and of folk song - his reputation is assured and continues to grow - in spite of a persistent and malignant whispering campaign promoted by those pygmies of the folk world who were jealous of his talent and his integrity. All I can say, 'Jeremy' is that if you insist on parroting this small-minded, petty prejudice, it's your loss! |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: Jim Lad Date: 15 Jan 07 - 06:07 PM Yeah! I caught myself cringe a little when he mentioned the Pogues. Was confused a bit by the "Black Faced Minstrels" thing but then; isn't that why they make chocolate and vanilla? |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: Les in Chorlton Date: 16 Jan 07 - 11:44 AM But Fairy Tale of New York is a bit good. Please lets not get Ewan McColl's trousers out again. What you enjoy is what you enjoy. What McColl achieved is another discussion entirely! |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: Scrump Date: 16 Jan 07 - 01:57 PM Well I like both Ewan MacColl and The Pogues, so there! As for the sparks from steam trains burning the undergrowth, round our way the railway company completely denuded (ooerr missus!) the railway embankments by chopping down all the trees and plants that used to hide the ugly overhead power gantries and cables from view. It looks bloody 'orrible now. This is their way of solving the problem of leaves on the line - instead of sweeping them up, chop down all the trees so there aren't any leaves that can get on the line. What's the point of Tony Blair planting a forest in the garden of Number 10 when Network Rail chops down all its trees?! |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: danensis Date: 16 Jan 07 - 04:16 PM Going back to the train s"etting the night on fire", I always used to think of this line when I went past the steelworks at Rotherham and saw the trains of tipper trucks depositing slag onto the side of the track. That really did set the night on fire. John |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: IanC Date: 17 Jan 07 - 03:53 AM Steam trains often literally set the night on fire. I used to stay with some in-laws outside Paignton who had a railway cutting literally at the bottom of the garden. The trains were steam, run by local enthusiasts, and in the dry of summer they'd regularly set the grass in the cutting on fire. Quite impressive. :-) |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: JeremyC Date: 17 Jan 07 - 08:29 AM I enjoy the Pogues because I have fairly broad taste. I also enjoy Iron Maiden (a fun band), 80s Megadeth (for their sheer anger and aggression), and Marilyn Manson, who's probably a better songwriter than many people think. On the other hand, I'm a huge fan of Phil Ochs, Martin Carthy and his daughter, Bert Jansch, John Renbourn, Anne Briggs, Pete Seeger, Woody Guthrie, Ramblin' Jack Elliott, and numerous others. But I still have yet to hear a Ewan MacColl performance that didn't absolutely suck. And no, I haven't heard "Radio Ballads," though I intend to check it out. I would be happy to modify my opinion--I like OTHER PEOPLE's versions of his songs, like Martin Carthy's "Springhill Mine Disaster"...and The Pogues' "Dirty Old Town." But I've heard his performance of both and it was absolute balls. Maybe it is a matter of taste, since unlike one of the posters above, I'm not an artistic fascist who believes that people aren't allowed to appreciate something I'm unable to appreciate equally. |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: Scrump Date: 17 Jan 07 - 09:08 AM I wouldn't put it anywhere near as strongly as JeremyC, but I take the point that some of MacColl's songs have been sung better by other people. But the same applies to other writers - Dylan springs to mind. And MacColl's voice probably isn't to everyone's taste. I think perhaps his recordings were sometimes not as good as he was live (yes, I did see him perform live on several occasions). This is fairly common in the folk world - I would go as far as to say that most folk artists sound better live, IMO, than on record. Maybe I just think that because I like live music, though. |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: JeremyC Date: 17 Jan 07 - 10:36 AM Oh, I agree with you there, Scrump. Most folksingers that I've seen or heard live have been far better that way than on a studio album. But I think that's only natural. |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: Scrump Date: 17 Jan 07 - 11:55 AM According to one online dictionary it means: soiled with dirt; foul; unclean, far advanced in the years of its life, thickly populated area, usually smaller than a city and larger than a village, having fixed boundaries and certain local powers of government. But there are other meanings. |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: GUEST,Shimrod Date: 17 Jan 07 - 05:16 PM Dear 'JeremyC', "I'm not an artistic fascist who believes that people aren't allowed to appreciate something I'm unable to appreciate equally." Now, Jeremy, I've read that several times and I'm still not sure what it means! Too much "80s Megadeath" (whatever that may be?!!) attacking the parts of the brain responsible for grammar, perhaps? I think that you're accusing me of being an 'artistic fascist' and that I am telling you what you should or should not listen to ... possibly (?) Far from it! Imbibe as much poison as you like - I couldn't give a toss! It seems to be a common characteristic of you anti-MacCollites to level such accusations when anyone disagrees with your tawdry little opinions. Actually, what really pisses me off is this constant, mindless chipping away at the reputation of a great man. But if you are unable to appreciate his genius - it's your loss! |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: weelittledrummer Date: 18 Jan 07 - 08:22 AM what the f--k's an artistic fascist anyway? Summons up the image of a guy in a smaock with a pallette of paints and brushes, goose stepping into the studio. For you Tommy......zee theatre workshop ist over! |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: GUEST,Shimrod Date: 18 Jan 07 - 09:20 AM I know that I should really stop here - I really, really should! But while I was being blown down the road today, by a gale of 'Katrina-like' proportions, it occurred to me that it is rock fans who can be the real 'artistic fascists'. This is because they are so blinkered by, and saturated in, the all-pervasive stuff that they insist that all singers and musicians should sound like rock stars. Anyone who doesn't bellow into a microphone (whilst practically inhaling it), in a peculiar strangulated voice, or thrash wildly away at an electric guitar is 'beyond-the-pale' as far as they are concerned - particularly anyone who sings in their normal voice with minimal or no accompaniment (cue here for MacColl bashers to criticise his Scottish accent - roll up, roll up whose going to be first?). If only Ewan had played an elecric guitar - he would be regarded as a hero today, rather than the Devil's First Disciple. Why even 'JeremyC' might be praising his version of 'Dirty Old Town'. |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: Barry Finn Date: 18 Jan 07 - 10:26 AM Bringing born & raised in a nasty part of Boston (USA), I was always able to relate to "Dirty Old Town" & didn't need much of the song to be spelt out. Where I grew up in the Mission Hill projects it was pretty nasty but like any loved place that needs tearing down it was still home to many. It now doesn't resemble what it once was, for the better in this case. I remember the 'West End'including 'Scolly Square' in Boston. A vibrant community just on the west slope of Beacon Hill (note that the Beacon Hill communiy is still there) it was leveled so that a bunch of expensive high rises could go in then the rest of the area was redeveloped in concrete & cement. By now I don't believe there are any West Enders alive today as a group. It wasn't nearly as dirty as the North End was at the same time nor as filthy as East Boston either but the property was becoming very valuable being so close to the Downtown/Financial/Business/Medical Districts. Progress? Barry |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: JeremyC Date: 18 Jan 07 - 10:40 AM Haha, 'shimrod' (I guess I'll take your "...if THAT'S what you want to call yourself" approach), if you hold the opinion that there's some sort of independent standard for taste that people can be judged by and held to, than you are indeed an artistic fascist. I also submit that you can't be bothered to read the posts of people you disagree with, since you're explicitly saying that I, as someone who enjoys rock music "insist that all singers and musicians should sound like rock stars," when this actually couldn't be further from the case. Oh--unless, to you, Bert Jansch, Pete Seeger, and the many other non-rock musicians I enjoy (since, as a genre, I like folk far better than I like rock) sound like "rock stars." I challenge you to point out where I insisted that Ewan MacColl should "sound like [a] rock star." Since, as a matter of fact, I listed Anne Briggs and Martin Carthy, both of whom frequently sing unaccompanied in "their natural voice" as performers I enjoy (and I also believe that A.L. Lloyd's unaccompanied performances are superior to MacColl's, based on the selections I've heard of both men's recordings), I'm wondering whether you read any further once I said I liked rock music. All I said is that I have yet to hear a performance by Ewan MacColl that wasn't either 1) heavily americanized to an inappropriate degree (e.g., sounds like american pop) or 2) in a ridiculously thick-to-the-point-of-minstrelsy-accent*. I've been pointed to some other performances of his, and since, unlike you, I am open-minded, I am hoping I can revise my opinion of his performances. * Regarding MacColl's accent: I know he's of Scots origin and raised in England, but I have no idea what spoken accent he had, as I've never heard a recording of him speaking. What I'm referring to is his delivery of certain traditional songs in such a thick and exaggerated archaic Scots that it is comparable to what you might have heard done in a "stereotypical" Negro accent during the days when blackface minstrels were popular. Neither is authentic, and both distract from the song. His use of Scots, in the small selection of songs I've heard him sing in this manner, is comparable to a white man saying "dem," "dese," "massah," and other such mutilated words. Also, since you've elevated this discussion so much, I'm going to make one final assertion: Woody Guthrie kicks Ewan MacColl's ass all over the place. Better performer, better songwriter, and an all around awesome dude. Plus, considering he's the reason Lonnie Donegan got popular, I'm gonna say Guthrie is more influential on both continents than Ewan MacColl. |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: weelittledrummer Date: 18 Jan 07 - 12:01 PM girls, girls, girls......! Now put those handbags down. Lonnie and Ewan probably got their check shirts from the same store. Both of them were very nice guys. You do them no honour by this hysterical nonsense and name calling. Ewan spoke with an educated scots accent as I remember. very pleasant. His c background was the theatre and his delivery theatrical and he did his best, which was actually pretty damn good. I didn't keep up with his kids progress but I remember talking to Peggy and she said both she and Ewan were pleased to see them messing about in bands when they teenagers. He wasn't half as narrow minded as half of his disciples, certainly not as some people on mudcat would have you believe. |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: JeremyC Date: 18 Jan 07 - 01:12 PM Cool, I'd always had the impression he was very rigid (although wasn't the folk scene at the time pretty hardcore about being traditional?) based on that statement of his that you shouldn't sing folk songs that didn't come from your country of origin, which has always struck me as silly. Really, I'd like to enjoy his music, especially considering that he and Lloyd were both so important to the early development of the folk revival in England. And his political views are of a type that I alternately admire and abhor (a lot like Pete Seeger's views during the same time period), which makes him quite an interesting character. This just happens sometimes. I can want to like someone's music as much as anything, but when it comes down to it, it just doesn't do the trick for me. It's the same way with a musician I know here--he's a great guy, a dedicated musician, a friendly, open, giving person, and on top of that, his views towards what music represents are very similar to mine. But I have one of his albums, and I can't get through it, as much as I wish I liked it. In his case, I actually feel bad that I don't like his music. With MacColl, I wish I liked it, but as it stands, I just don't. The most I can hope for is that I hear something new (to me) from him (or my acquaintance) that I can get into, and to that end, I keep checking out new things in hopes that I find something I can enjoy. |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: GUEST Date: 18 Jan 07 - 01:39 PM JeremyC, As you said in an earlier posting, liking or disliking MacColl is entirely (I think you wrote 'possibly') a matter of taste. Personally, I listened to his singing and thoroughly enjoyed it for over thirty years. On the other hand, I wouldn't go anywhere near The Pogues with rubber gloves and a mask, but that's my taste. MaColl wasn't, nor did he either claim or attempt to be 'traditional - whatever that means, on the contrary, his argument was that the tradition was a stepping stone to creating a modern song form. The fallacious statement that he insisted that people sang songs from their country of origin has been hammered to death on other threads on this forum. As somebody said earlier, the fact that you didn't like his singing makes you the loser; there were enough people around to fill his club and concert performances throughout his time in the folk scene. Comparisons between him and Guthrie really don't mean much; again, it's a matter of taste. Jim Carroll |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: weelittledrummer Date: 18 Jan 07 - 02:32 PM And we all say silly things. I'm sure he had his faults, but he and Peggy were among the good guys. Jeremy's not a loser Jim,cos he doesn't like Ewan's voice - its not compulsory to like anybody. The thing is though, Ewan did stuff with that voice, like those long ballads, that nobody really much has had a handle on since. his whole thing was, look I'm like an actor in a play delivering a great soliloquy. Not everybody was a fan at the time. But he WAS ambitious artistically. And that takes intelligence, committment, and a special sort of bohemian detachment from the music industry - a bit more than the gang of haircuts on the upper slopes of folk stardom these days. (Gimme a hit! Gimme a hit!) |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: GUEST Date: 18 Jan 07 - 02:47 PM Jim, I think you are spot-on when you say, "...the tradition was a stepping stone to creating a modern song form." McColl was steeped in traditional music but, as a Modernist, he was adopting the same principle as T.S. Eliot had done following his mentor Ezra Pound's advice to "make it new." This resulted in groundbreaking verse like The Waste Land, which many feel was the first truly modern poem because, while it concerned itself with the contemporary human condition, it was full of classical allusions. Dirty Old Town is, in my opinion, a wonderful post-industrial love lyric which updaties timeless themes in the same way that, for example, The Collier Laddie drew on The Seven Yellow Gypsies. As regards his apparent desire to destroy the setting for his song ("chop you down like an old dead tree")you have to remember that McColl was a socialist of the old school who believed that the working class should be transported from the slums into a brave new world of "shining steel." We now know that this was a misguided utopian ideal which resulted in the destruction of traditional communities to be replaced by estates of brutal, alientaing tower blocks which are only now being torn down from Bucharest to Bermondsey. |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: JeremyC Date: 18 Jan 07 - 03:52 PM We now know that this was a misguided utopian ideal which resulted in the destruction of traditional communities to be replaced by estates of brutal, alientaing tower blocks which are only now being torn down from Bucharest to Bermondsey.Spot on. I'd drink to that (actually, it's enough to drive me to drink anyway). You can't really expect much else to happen when virtually the entire population is forced to survive a school system geared towards elimination of creative or critical thought, with an ultimate goal of making thousands of docile (happy? Nah) little factory workers--oh, and spend their formative years being taught that large companies are their friends. Seems like a handful manage to escape somehow, but, like in "Brave New World," the majority is never going to listen. But that's just my opinion. Jim, the Guthrie thing was a bit of deliberate childishness intended to highlight the general childishness of deriding someone for his or her taste. Guthrie and MacColl were both admirable and highly influential musicians who came along at a time when they were sorely needed. I'm glad MacColl had fans, because without him, some of the people I DO like to listen to may not have made the same great music. So as far as I'm concerned, it's in every way a matter of taste, and where taste goes, I think everyone has their own reasons for liking/disliking things. |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: GUEST Date: 19 Jan 07 - 04:07 AM WLD I wrote 'the' loser, not 'a' loser - no offence intended, just that JC lost out by not appreciating MacColl - which he is, of course, entitled to do. JC I too enjoy Guthrie's singing, but I never heard MacColl sing 'Tom Joad', nor Guthrie, 'Jock O' The Side' (interesting thought!). I take your point about your remark. Dirty Old Town. MacColl's Salford was a rat-ridden slum unfit for human habitation, which was eventually replaced by high rise slums, also unfit for human habitation. I know this because I experienced both thirty miles away in Liverpool (Cardboard box - you were lucky!). Jim Carroll |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: IanC Date: 19 Jan 07 - 04:50 AM Now that the BBC's about to move to Salford, anyone got any ideas for a celebratory verse? ;-) |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: GUEST,Shimrod Date: 19 Jan 07 - 09:41 AM "All I said is that I have yet to hear a performance by Ewan MacColl that wasn't either 1) heavily americanized to an inappropriate degree (e.g., sounds like american pop) or 2) in a ridiculously thick-to-the-point-of-minstrelsy-accent*." Are we talking about the same Ewan MacColl here? Personally, I don't recognise this description at all. For the record, his speaking voice was sort of 'posh Lancashire' (I was going to say 'educated Lancashire' - but that would be offensive to my Lancastrian friends who all speak in an educated way, no matter how broad their accents!). I suppose that this voice was a result of his training as an actor. He also had a 'BBC voice' which was a slightly posher version of his normal speaking voice (listen to the 'Song Carriers' recordings, that he did for the BBC, if you can find them). As for his Scottish accent, we have to remember that both of his parents were Scots and some of their ways of speaking must have rubbed off on him. Actually, my experience of him singing such ballads as 'Sir Patrick Spens', 'Clerk Colvill' and 'The Swan Swims Sae Bonny', albeit in 'thick, archaic Scots', I count as some of the truly great artistic experiences of my life (I can feel the hairs standing up on my neck, now, as I write this). I believe that these ballads only really work in the original Scots and although there have been some creditable attempts to anglicise them, some of the poetry of the Scottish versions is lost. I really do believe that, if he was to do them justice, Ewan had to attempt to sing those ballads in a Scottish accent. Personally, I think he did a credible job - but then I'm not Scottish. Finally, 'JeremyC', I realise that some of my remarks above were churlish and intemperate and I apologise - of course you are entitled to your opinion and your own tastes! It's just that, although I'm not normally given to hero worship, Ewan had a huge formative influence on me. It's difficult to describe the impact his singing had on me when I first heard it. These days, though, all we seem to get is a sort of petty and mean-minded chipping away at his reputation and my objectivity tends to go out of the window! As Jim Carrol has often said we need to forget all of this silly sniping and concentrate on his formidable and impressive achievements. |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: JeremyC Date: 19 Jan 07 - 10:13 AM And see, Shimrod, I'm describing the selection of his songs that I've heard, which is far from a complete or even a representative sample. If you have any particular tracks to recommend, I'd be happy to check them out. I can appreciate your points about the accent (it's a tough choice--do you perform with or without? Either can sound inauthentic, so you just have to go with what you think you can pull off), and I see why he wanted to do that. Maybe with repeated listenings it would come across as less of a shock to me (and even with people I really enjoy, some of their songs have to "grow on me" so to speak). I'm not very familiar with Scots, but I know it must have its own poetic qualities if that's how Burns chose to write, and translations will often lose some of their impact. It's a tough problem, and he made his choice. Maybe I can get used to it, because I certainly think the songs themselves are good and well worth being sung. The feeling that you get when an artist comes along and changes your approach to things is very intense. I have the same kind of affection/admiration towards Martin Carthy and Phil Ochs, because hearing each of them changed the way I thought about hearing and playing music. I'm glad we can agree to disagree on matters of taste (with the proviso that I'll be happy to agree upon sufficient exposure to MacColl to find something I really like, since, given his level of support here, I'm sure there's something). |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: GUEST Date: 19 Jan 07 - 10:50 AM Sorry, I missed the 'Americanised' bit. I know of only one record out of hundreds where he adopted an American accent (to sing choruses for eggy's songs) and that was the Folkways 'Two Way Trip'. Can somebody put me right on this one - I thought I had all his records. Jim Carroll |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: weelittledrummer Date: 19 Jan 07 - 11:24 AM I sort of know what he might mean. Bruce Turners clarinet gives the original Dirty Old town a trad jazz feel - this must have been when trad was really kicking ass commercially. And trad is American in origin When you compare to what say Carthy did with Byker Hill - which was nailing England's folksong colours very firmly to the mast of a ship sailing in the opposite direction - modal scales, Bartok like rhythmic complexity, the sort of celtic origins hinted at in AL Lloyds Folksong in England. Its a point of view and one that was held very firmly in some quarters in the 1970's. the bad old days - when you had to decide whether you were Jasper Carrot or Martin Carthy and nothing much in between was tolerated. best wishes to all survivors of that bloody campaign Big al whittle |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: Good Soldier Schweik Date: 19 Jan 07 - 12:32 PM on ,the subject of clarinet,Sue Miles provided lovely clarinet and bass clarinet on The dunmow flitch[S F A 106] and CHEATING THE TIDE [g v r 227]both on vinyl,thse lps are worth getting just for the clarinet parts and Jez Lowe and Martin Carthys guitar. |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: Good Soldier Schweik Date: 19 Jan 07 - 02:03 PM I agree with Jim Carroll. |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: Alec Date: 19 Jan 07 - 02:33 PM I was intrigued by interpretation of the melody weelittledrummer (& I hear what you hear when I hear Martin Carthy)so I thought I'd try it on the Harmonica (diatonic in c) Have to say it evoked a sense of the North West of England in the thirties for me. This is obviously subjective as I was born in the North East in 1962. It is possible it's because I have seen to many kichen sink drama's & watched to many Boulting Brothers films & it's true I hear something similar in "Love Me Do" but whilst their may be something of Jazz in it I hear more of Industrial Lancashire making it's own entertainment. |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: Effsee Date: 19 Jan 07 - 02:55 PM I've been mulling over this thread since it started, and even more so over JeremyC's first and subsequent postings. I've been a great admirer of the work and singing of Ewan MacColl for over 40 years. I can honestly say IMO that I've never heard anything by him which I thought of as having "sucked". (Always allowing I might misunderstand the definition of the word) My ears do jarr slightly on some of the early recordings/arrangements and when he introduced vibrato/tremolo(?) into his singing. I think, JC, if you were to hear later recordings of his singing such as that as the Folk on 2 CD, Ewan MacColl & Peggy Seeger, (includes Ian Campbell, Ray Fisher,Belle Stewart and MacColl family members),MASH CD 002, released by Cooking Vinyl 1996 you may fare better. Tracks 9-12 feature My Old Man/Spinning Wheel/ and the very poignant story of the making of The Joy of Living/then an interview with (Hellooow I'm) Jim Lloyd, in which you can hear his natural speaking voice, which to me has a sort of general Scots burr. Another CD which features his later singing is "Naming of Names", COOK CD 036, 1999, which if I'm reading between your lines correctly, might well appeal to you. Both CDs are readily available from Cooking Vinyl. Hoping that you'll enjoy them if you get round to hearing them. |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: GUEST,roomzero Date: 20 Jan 07 - 09:56 PM I was unaware of the geographical origins of this song until I ran across this thread. I picked it up from a pub in Milwaukee in the states and fell in love with the vocal melody. Although I do respect the loyalty certain individuals have to Salford, and for making sure that the original intent of the song is translated to those of us far away from the UK, it stands to reason that a good song is a good song and you can't keep it in one place. It's a bit like ordering people in the UK or Ireland not to play any Johnny Cash because they've never been to the South, never shot people in Reno Nevada, or ran from their failing marriage to Jackson Mississippi (though if they did, that would be quite eventful). Better yet, ordering people NOT to play Muddy Waters songs because they don't know the Southside of Chicago from the North (That means no Stones, Yardbirds, etc). In the Midwest, and especially around the great lakes, we're definitely experiencing a massive decay of our more industrialized areas (yeaaa globalization) so a song like this is very relevant today. This is the kind of song that applies to many of us in the flyover zones of the upper Midwest, and to people all over the world, who despite the intense feeling of incarceration by their surroundings, manage to derive some kind of appreciation for life. Because no matter how run down and dodgy your town is, there's always a girl worth kissing by the factory wall (though I wouldn't go dreaming a dream by the Chicago River). |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: Roughyed Date: 21 Jan 07 - 02:11 PM Of course everyone from wherever should be able to sing this song if it connects with them. But I don't think you should sing a song when you don't respect it (unless you're getting paid lots and lots of lovely money). |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: Bernard Date: 21 Jan 07 - 03:16 PM The art of writing a good song is in making it so that people can readily identify with it. Dirty Old Town is a classic example of such a song. Yes, it's originally about Salford (but so was Ray Davies' Waterloo Sunset!!), but there's really nothing in the song that pinpoints it to one place. Another good example is Paul Simon's 'Homeward Bound', written whilst waiting for a train on Widnes station during a tour of UK folk clubs. I drive past the 'Gasworks Croft' mentioned in the first verse most days of the week... at the end of the M602! Ewan would never have seen the M602... I suppose that's what sets some songwriters apart from the rest. Some merely write their experiences into a song almost as a diary entry, but the good ones have a knack of generalising enough so as not to limit the song's appeal. Who am I to talk, though... I couldn't write a song even if my life depended upon it!! ;o) |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: Scrump Date: 22 Jan 07 - 09:49 AM Yes, it's originally about Salford (but so was Ray Davies' Waterloo Sunset!!), Hmmm, I didn't know there was an underground railway in Salford :-) but there's really nothing in the song that pinpoints it to one place. Another good example is Paul Simon's 'Homeward Bound', written whilst waiting for a train on Widnes station during a tour of UK folk clubs. I don't think Simon said anything in the song to say he was at Widnes - he could have been on any railway station, anywhere, at least in the western world at the time. When I first heard it I imagined him being in a US rail station, before I later read he had been on tour in the UK when he wrote it. As for Waterloo Sunset, that is clearly about Waterloo in London. Although the sentiments expressed in the lyrics could apply to lots of other places, the lyrics refer explicitly to one location. Dirty Old Town and Homeward Bound don't. I don't think a song has to be 'generic' in terms of location for people to be able to identify with it. I'm sure people who've never been to London could identify with Waterloo Sunset, even though it is more or less 'pinpointed' to that place. |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: Ruth Archer Date: 22 Jan 07 - 09:52 AM Where's Widnes? Billy Bragg reckons he wrote it in Barking... |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: Alec Date: 22 Jan 07 - 09:56 AM I met Martin Carthy once who had been in the next room when Paul Simon wrote the song (he did confirm it was Widnes) apparently it took Simon an hour to come up with a rhyme for station. |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: Scrump Date: 22 Jan 07 - 11:47 AM nation - that took me about 3 seconds. |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: GUEST Date: 23 Jan 07 - 07:19 AM perhaps he had vebal constipation |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: Scrump Date: 23 Jan 07 - 07:38 AM I can imagine Martin saying: "Are you going to be much longer in there, Paul? There's people waiting out here!" PS: "Almost done... I'm stuck on 'All my words come back to me in shades of... shades of...' - Dagnabbit, what rhymes with that?" MC: "Mediocrity?" PS: "Hey, that's it! Thanks - I'm done now!" :-) |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: Charley Noble Date: 23 Jan 07 - 09:19 PM Well, it's nice to sift through this thread again and actually see people communicating with each other. Most of the time, living as I do in the States, I haven't a clue about the devisive issues involved in listening to Ewan MacColl sing. I usually was interested in his songs first, primarily the topical ones, and favorably impressed with his presentation. My mother was always fond of his renditions of Child ballads and his recording of Scottish Drinking Songs. His singing of Dirty Old Town remains one of my long time favorites. I was surprised to learn some years ago that he had changed his name but I respect his reasons for doing so. It seems childish to me to consider that an important issue. Cheerily, Charley Noble (not my real name) |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: GUEST,United Road Date: 21 May 07 - 12:27 AM Manchester United fans have started to sing this song, expect it to hear it on the terraces next season. |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: Bernard Date: 23 May 07 - 09:18 AM Only just re-read this...!! Scrump said: As for Waterloo Sunset, that is clearly about Waterloo in London.' Agreed - but that was after he re-worked it to make it more 'commercial'. The song was 'inspired' by the river Irwell in Salford! At least, that's what Ray Davies said many years ago in an interview. And he should know, I reckon! Apart from the mention of 'Waterloo', it could really be anywhere... |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: Keith A of Hertford Date: 23 May 07 - 09:53 AM Anywhere with a busy underground and a river crossing. |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: GUEST,wagga wagga Date: 20 Sep 07 - 11:44 AM God found this site... and there's my request asking who sings 'Dirty Ardoyne' posted 2 years ago... and not a single answer... Come on give us a hand !! |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: GUEST,Noreen Date: 20 Sep 07 - 01:31 PM 1 year and 19 days to be exact, wagga wagga. Your query would get more notice and then possibly some replies, if you started a new thread with 'Dirty Ardoyne' in the title. |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: GUEST,Pauline mccance Date: 08 Feb 08 - 08:29 AM Can anyone tell me about this address on a birth cert i have, i think it was nearcross laine salford, 21 Artisans Dwellings. i think it was used as a downe and out accomadation. when i was young. can anyone help on this. Pauline |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: GUEST,PMB Date: 08 Feb 08 - 12:26 PM I've a vague memory of these - but if they are the ones I'm thinking of they were nearer Oldfield Road and Salford Station. I'll try to look it up tonight, if the maps I've got go back far enough. |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: GUEST Date: 13 Apr 08 - 03:22 PM Hi all I was wondering is there a version of the song recorded with the Salford lyrics in it. I'd love to have that Thanks Andy |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: Tootler Date: 13 Apr 08 - 05:44 PM I don't know about a recording, but when I was at University in Salford, I am sure I heard the third line in the third verse sung "Smelt the spring on the Salford wind" on several occasions. Mind in those days "Smokey" and "Salford" were synonymous [g] |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: Snuffy Date: 13 Apr 08 - 06:14 PM And "sulphured" as mentioned by Firinne above in June 2002 |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: GUEST Date: 14 Apr 08 - 12:04 AM Thanks guys will keep on trying |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: Dave Hanson Date: 14 Apr 08 - 03:32 AM Guest Pauline mccance, if you are talking about Ewan, he was born in Coburg Street, Salford. eric |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: GUEST,mm Date: 14 Apr 08 - 06:44 AM Perhaps coming from America Clinton doesn't know what a gasworks is or looks like . Gasworks are industrial plants which produce gas from coal in the the process of which they emit a disgusting smell. They appears as hideous oval-shaped , grey lumps of metal dominating grim and gritty urban landscapes. The song contrasts the love and dreams of a sensuous young man in springtime to the oppressive ugliness of his industrial surroundings . For a picture of what a gasworks looks like in all its glory see: http://www.flickr.com/photos/raver_mikey/2334376874/ |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: GUEST,bill S from Perth Date: 14 Apr 08 - 09:53 AM Enjoyed the thread, I also went to Salford Uni in the late 60's and lived locally. Regarding the soap suds, I used to cross the footbridge below the weir off the Crescent and the pollution used to give rise to a mountain of suds which used to take to the air along the river and you had to dodge between the huge globs. Croft as a few people have said, was a wasteland for playing by day and coortin at neet. Undercroft was a common name for the huge cellar area below railway stations used for goods and storage especially Piccadilly and StPancras. Incidentally, no-one has pointed out that Salford was the first city in England to go smokeless and ban open coal fires. Manchester Exchange was in Salford and shared England's longest railway platform with Victoria, the only intercity station platform. Salford was a City then in its own right with a cathedral that nobody knew about. (go back far enough and Manchester was part of Salford) I was on the folk club committee at the Uni, we used to get up to 300 people there, mainly locals from the tower blocks, but never had McColl in my day. I remember an evil sulphury smog in 1968 there but never saw another that yellow. The towpath along the Rochdale Canal was a great way to see the city from a different angle. Wassail Bill |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: McGrath of Harlow Date: 14 Apr 08 - 12:22 PM Gasworks did smell pretty bad - but gasometers (which is what mm presumably means by "hideous oval-shaped , grey lumps of metal"), which is where the has is stored (these days natural gas) can look pretty good. As the song puts it: "Though the gasworks isn't violets, they improve the local scene For mountains they would very nicely pass..." |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: GUEST, Sminky Date: 14 Apr 08 - 12:41 PM There's a scene in the film Hobson's Choice where Maggie and Will are sat by the river/canal in Salford and you can see the suds blowing up off the water. |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: David el Gnomo Date: 14 Apr 08 - 01:52 PM I always thought that the bridge over the sudsy bit was called 'Cock Robin Bridge' but now I look up that name it wasn't that bridge at all! Unless that one also had the same name as the footbridge over the railway at Brindle Heath? Stranger things have happened... Anyway. Couple of things - The Spinners may just sing 'Salford Wind' - One of them is from Salford. The Artisans Dwellings, otherwise known as just 'The Dwellings' were at the top of Oldfield Road - More like a Tenement block than a place for down and outs. That pleasure was reserved for the Doss House! Cheers Dave. |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: weelittledrummer Date: 14 Apr 08 - 02:21 PM When I was about six I used to visit my uncle in Warrington and we'd stand watching the canal, and the river was all beautiful colours because there was oil all over the surface. I was so jealous that our river in rural Lincolnshire didn't have all these pretty colours. |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: Tattie Bogle Date: 14 Apr 08 - 07:44 PM Pub session on Friday: young lady comes up and asks "Can you do Dirty Old Town by the Pogues?" Wonder what Ewan would have thought of that! We did it our own way! |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: Bert Date: 14 Apr 08 - 09:22 PM Gas is made from oil nowadays. I remember spending a fine summer's day measuring the tide in the Thames at Fulham Gasworks. They needed to know how much to dredge to get the oil barges in. Although commonly known as gasometers the correct name is gasholders. Planes going to Heathrow used to line up on Gasholder 1, just outside of our office. They would come in really low, much lower than the regulation minimum of 500 feet. And that damned gasholder used to rise considerably when they filled it. Kinda scary. Oh and for what it's worth Fulham Gasworks has the oldest gasholder in the world. "Number 6" built in 1860 something. |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: David el Gnomo Date: 15 Apr 08 - 03:11 AM 200! :D |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: McGrath of Harlow Date: 15 Apr 08 - 08:04 PM Here is what they have done in Vienna to some gasometers which were no longer needed. Impressive. In England they'd just pull them down and probably put up another Tescos. And here's a picture of some unreconstructed gasometers - and you see what Gus Allen meant. "For mountains they would very nicely pass." (And I've always called them gasometers, bert, including the ones down the hill from where I grew up.) |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: Dave Hanson Date: 16 Apr 08 - 02:50 AM Gas ? made from oil ? no I think not Bert, in the UK it's natural gas if it's not bottled, then it's usually propane. eric |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: GUEST,PMB Date: 16 Apr 08 - 03:54 AM Bill S: Nobody knows about Salford cathedral largely because it's the Catholic cathedral, which don't count. Actually Manchester became a (C of E) diocese just a year or two before Salford became a Catholic one- around 1850. Manchester town became a city in the 1850s, but Salford (which had the older town charter) had to wait till the 1920s- I remember the 40th anniversary, when some of the (usually dark green) buses (*) were painted white and gold- which soon looked a mess in the general atmosphere of filth that surrounded the city back then. The gasworks was just off Regent Road, about half way along, and indeed by the old (Manchester, Bolton and Bury) canal, which however was closed and disused when McColl wrote his song. Trains setting the night on fire would have been travelling on Stephenson's Liverpool and Manchester line, or the lines out towards Bolton or Walkden. As for axes tempered in the fire, I remember my father singing taht verse from Dirty Old Town in the early 60s (I would have been 9 to 11) while heat- treating an axe blade he'd found buried in the garden, by heating it red hot in the open coal fire, then quenching it in a galvanised bucket of water, filling the living room with sharp- smelling steam. Mam was out. (*) Mostly Daimler CVG6 for afficionados |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: dick greenhaus Date: 16 Apr 08 - 11:50 AM As an item of general information, coal gas was essentially Carbon Monoxide, which made suicide by sticking your head in an unlit oven, a feasible action. It hasn't worked since the switch to natural gas, which is essentially methane. |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: David el Gnomo Date: 18 Apr 08 - 04:33 PM Gas works is still there, PMB. Well, some of the buildings and a gasometer anyway. You are right about the location but it is actualy nearer Liverpool Road that Regent Road - In between Windsor Street and West Egerton Street, both of which link the two previously mentioned parrallel roads. A new road, Albion Way, now runs parrallel to the old Cross Lane where you used to pick up the start of Regent Road. What was the Cross Lane end of Regent Road is a huge Roundabout and the start of the M602. Windsor Street crossed Liverpool Street, round about where Albion Way now is and ran up to Windsor Bridge and the Windsor Bridge sidings - Where you could have seen both the old canal (the MB&B as you rightly say) and a train set the night on fire in the same place:-) In fact, the gasworks croft was in the immediate vicinity as well so lots of the song could be spotted just by standing on the corner of Liverpool Street and Albion Way! I am not sure which factory wall is referenced but there were more than enough in the area. Now all gone. Salford had a whole live city centre of it's own as well, all along the A6 (Broad Street, The Crescent and Chapel Street), Down Cross Lane and Ordsall Lane and all along Regent Road. There was the Cattle Market down Cross Lane and at least two quite large, well large to my eyes as a child, department stores. One of which had the old style 'cable network' that carried money and receipts whizzing overhead, much to my delight. Now we just have Salford Quays. Very pretty but a concrete ghost of the bustling industry and dockside it used to be. I still live here but find it a little sad that while we have a university and a cathedral, giving us city status, we no longer have a city centre! Still, there was a shooting in one if my locals (Dog and Partridge, Irlams o' th' Height) a couple of weeks back. I suppose we still have some entertainment to be thankful for;-) Cheers Dave |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: David el Gnomo Date: 18 Apr 08 - 04:59 PM Friday night. Nowt on telly. Not going out coz I'm up at 6:15 tomorrow so I got to thinking about what I just writtid and decided to update Mr MacColls song, So, with apologies to Ewan - New old town. Dave Polshaw. 18 Aprl 2008. I met my love, by the open fields Dreamed a dream, by the concrete quays Kissed my girl, by the retail park Dirty old town Where's that dirty old town? I heard a concert, where the docks once were Saw the neon, set the night on fire Smelt the spring, on the sterile wind Dirty old town What dirty old town? Clouds still drift, across the moon Cats still prowl, along their beat But girls don't go, out alone at night Dirty old town Dangerous old town The planners took, a good sharp axe Made of steel, but not made here Cut the heart, from the living tree Dirty old town They cut it down. Feel free to use, abuse or amend accordingly, just give me and Salford a mention if you do:-) I suspect it is true of lots of towns that had their 'clearances' in the 60's. They got rid of a lot of awful stuff, but sometimes I can't help but wonder if they threw out the baby with the bath water. Oh - BTW - I did hear a concert where the docks once were only last week. Jethro Tull 40th Anniversary tour at the Lowry's Lyric theatre. Funny to think that when Ian Anderson was first standing on one leg, the docks, the factories and the slums in 'Hanky Park' were all still there:-) Cheers Dave |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: David el Gnomo Date: 18 Apr 08 - 05:01 PM Is that a mudcat record btw - 26 minutes to think of, write and type up a song? (And I checked it 3 times) :D |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: Amos Date: 18 Apr 08 - 10:15 PM Dave: No, it isn't, but it's a good performance!! If you look back over the Song Challenge Threads you will find the record in there somewhere. I think it was four minutes, or something. A |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: GUEST,Noreen Date: 19 Apr 08 - 09:26 AM >...coal gas was essentially Carbon Monoxide... Carbon monoxide itself is non-combustible, but is a byproduct (along with cyanogens, sulphur compounds and other nasties) of the distillation of coal. Coal gas contains approximately 50% hydrogen, 35% methane and 8% carbon monoxide. You can still gas yourself with 'natural' gas, but it works more by displacement of oxygen from the air you are breathing rather than by poisoning. Nice song, Dave! |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: David el Gnomo Date: 19 Apr 08 - 10:35 AM Thanks. Noreen:-) When will we see you back in Salford again? The song's evolved and is evolving still - on this thread. D. |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: GUEST,Gaffer Date: 21 Apr 08 - 08:37 AM I recall a review years back in a national daily - ?Guardian perhaps - of a Pogues concert in Salford of all places in which the reviewer described it a song written about "their native Dublin" - I'm sure a Dublin reviewer would be slower to accuse "Cockles and Mussels" of being from anyone's native Salford! Gaffer |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: GUEST,lox Date: 21 Apr 08 - 09:16 AM Each line conjures up more than just the image it literally describes. eg "I'm gonna make me a big sharp axe - shining steel tempered in the fire" Why an axe? literally it makes no sense ... shining steel? tempered in the fire? why all that information? Well because it conjures up images of foundries, molten metal and hard industrial work - as was typical of the region. The song is deeply descriptive and each word carries a descriptive subtext that goes deeper than even just physical description. This is lyrical impressionism that describes the writers subjective experience of the town from an emotional point of view and has as its lens a love affair. It is meant less to be about salford specifically than about human experience in an industrial town, hence iits abilty to mean something profound and beautiful to folks in such diverse places as sydney and dublin. If you're looking for literal descriptions, buy a car manual. |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: ard mhacha Date: 21 Apr 08 - 09:51 AM The song captures perfectly the smoky old towns in the north of England, I worked in a few of those towns during the late 1950s through the 60s. The song brings me back,and the memories are of happy times being young and fit, you didn`t care,smoke?what smoke?, nowts the bother. |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: GUEST,Paula Flanagan Kesteloot Date: 21 Apr 08 - 04:16 PM I live in France, and was born in Salford, the town described in Dirty Old Town . If you knew what Salford used to look like you would understand the lyrics more. Another Salford song is Matchstalk men etc.. (can't remember the title) which is about the factory & Salford street scenes painted by Lowry. They belong together. This is Salford's history and nobody else can try to claim it. Here in France the men of the dirty old town (The Salford Pals) lie in soldiers' cemeteries around Thiepval and Authuille on the Somme. The song will be sung for them. Das Lied beschreibt meine Heimatstadt. Es handelt sich um Salford. |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: GUEST Date: 13 Jul 08 - 12:38 PM i am a canadian folksinger who grew up in the '50's and '60's and have just found and learned "Dirty Old Town" ... my sister and brother in law were visiting from Galway a couple of weeks ago ... the brother in law, John, gave me a number of cd's, one being 'Luke Kelly the Collection'containing the song as a version learned from Ewan ... being of Scot/Irish descent and my dad having been a coalminer in stellerton nova scotia, the imagery is easy for me to see ... i remember as a boy visiting my granparents in westville and stellerton and seeing them as dirty old towns ... the coaldust was everywhere and still burned in most of the homes... in winter the snow was black ... also even though our family has been here since the late 1700's i had heard the term 'croft' and not known what it was ... i am so happy to have found this site with the truth of the song ... i've always tried to sing songs as i believe they were origionaly written ... i just learned the song this morning and will be able to sing it, with confidence knowing where it came from ... dave macpherson |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: GUEST,Mark Date: 02 Sep 08 - 11:33 AM The lyric I have always heard, which I presume to be correct is: "Smelled the spring on the smoky wind". |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: David el Gnomo Date: 02 Sep 08 - 11:52 AM I think that is what was written by Ewan, Mark. D. |
|
Subject: RE: Help: Dirty Old Town? Meaning??? From: GUEST,Ex Salford Guest Date: 13 Apr 09 - 08:43 PM Well well well, I never thought I would read a thread as long as this in it's entirity ,but I did. I was born and raised in Salford and remember the town before "Salford precinct" or "Salford shopping city" as it is now known. Cross lane the road leading down too the Docks was famous for having about 40 pub's within a mile, and you can imagine the sort of people that ran them,hard types with a gentle side,and some of the women that frequented ,you can guess their trade........one of them " Vinegar Vera" is STILL famous in the area if you want more info on her go to www.kersalflats.co.uk and check out the people Tab you will find the king of girl Salford used to produce,picture on there as well. Someone mentioned it being at one time the most populated area in Europe I believe he was correct,nearly 250,000 population in 1931 now down to 72,000. I went to school with the nephew of Harold Riley and through him met Harold and a cedrtain Mr L S Lowry. Unfortunately one of the main employers in the area was The PIT Agecroft colliery, I made damn certain i wasn't going down that hell hole when I was in my last year at school by applying to join The Royal Air Force 6 months before the rest of the lads in our year did ! Thankfully I was accepted. I left at 16 and have rarely been back ,I am now 52,but, I am still a Salford lad. I went a few years ago to a funeral and met cousins and old friends i hadn't seen for years, to be met by "How do " a Salfordian shortened version of "How do you do?" after a short time one of my cousins commented " By heck,you aren't half posh now aren't you?" as far as I know I still have my Salford accent !!!! The ships at the Docks certainly did sound at midnight New Years Eve and we used to listen to them herald the New Year and as kids loved it,all gone now as the Docks are salford quays. Best rendition of the song in Temple Bar , Dublin , I think it was sort of adopted by some of the Irish lads that worked in the Manchester are as labourers ,made their money and went back home.As the singer introduced the song he said " here's a song you may recognise which a lot of people think is about Dublin,but was actually written about Salford" so even though The Dubliners made it a very famous song it still gets introduced as a Salford song. |
