Who Wrote Dirty Old Town, And What Is It About?
Rockapedia | 3rd January, 2024
Dirty Old Town (The Beat)
The song Dirty Old Town appears at almost every trad session
, in pubs across Ireland and bars in the US. Brought to popularity by The Dubliners in 1968 and The Pogues in 1985, the classic still guarantees a sing along
.
While the song has become a folk classic, Dirty Old Town
began as an interlude to cover an awkward scene change in singer songwriter, Ewan MacColl's, 1949 play, Landscape with Chimneys
.
Ewan MacColl, was a British folk singer-songwriter, folk song collector, labour activist and actor born in England to Scottish parents. He would be best known as one of the instigators of the 1960s folk revival as well as for writing such songs as The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face
and Dirty Old Town
.
Dirty Old Town
is about where McColl was from, Salford, then in Lancashire, England. The first verse refers to the gasworks croft, which was a piece of open land adjacent to the gasworks, and then speaks of the old canal, which was the Manchester, Bolton & Bury Canal.
Dirty Old Town
would find itself in the Irish charts when Irish trad group, The Dubliners, released their version in 1968, peaking at No.10.
The folk classic would feature on Rum Sodomy & the Lash
by The Pogues in 1985, reaching No.62 in the UK and No.27 in the Irish charts when released as a single, eventually being certified Silver for sales.
