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When Bill Taylor compared very different versions of Dirty Old Town – the song about Salford that Ewan MacColl wrote for a play in 1949 – in our Cover Story series, there was lively if modest interest.
Bill’s piece first appeared a few years ago. But since, as part of a relentless drive to share some of this site’s archive with our growing army of Salut! Live Facebook Group members (OK, small regiment rather than army), I reposted it, the response has been phenomenal. When last I looked, the process of sharing the post at other folk groups on Facebook had brought 3,400 “reaches”.
That could, I suppose, mean a few people looking lots of times; I prefer to believe that thousands at least saw the Facebook post introducing the article. And enough people have followed the link to Salut Live to boost visitor numbers significantly.
But the debate my post – and Bill’s preference for the Ian Campbell Folk Group version from the 1960s – has generated is worthy of mention. It’ll be selective but by all means have a look at the groups I mention – a simple search on Facebook gets you there – and see what others, unquoted here, have had to say.
Then: Thursfield Street, Salford by Ian Roberts
Now: image of Salford’s Lowry bridge, also known as the Millennium bridge, by Irid Escent
Best of all, at the Folk Music Worldwide group. a Midlands singer and former folk club organiser John “Desi’ Corcoran wrote:
I was lucky enough to meet McColl and Campbell once in the same room, I wouldn’t even try to choose one version. But I’m still amazed when I go back to Ireland how any people including musicians who swear it’s an Irish song!
I probed further via Messenger, leading to this fleshing of the bones:
I used to be [involved in folk music] and ran a couple of folk clubs, but six years ago two strokes pretty much put and end to that, though I do hope to sing again.In the 70s. I met Ian and saw quite a bit of him and his group. In around 1983 he invited me to a support spot they were booked at in the old Waterworks folk club in Edgbaston. There he said he wanted to introduce me to someone, I was fairly new to folk music then. So I walked in the bar with him, went up to ths short bearded guy at the bar and said “Desi, this is Ewan MacColl”.I shook his hand but really didn’t know who he was though I thought I’d heard the name.Half hour later I realised McColl was the main act and with his wife Peggy and two others. They started singing a very old type song that I didn’t know. I did have to pick my younger brother up later so I decided to leave then.Since then I’ve been told and told the story myself, that I must have been the only folk singer (as I went on to become) that walked out on Ewan MacColl!Was also very lucky to meet his daughter Kirsty, again thanks to Ian. He was some guy. At that time I had dreadful stage fright which I later beat. but when I met Kirsty MacColl, she was even more scared than me.
And please look at his priceless Dave Swarbrick anecdote in the first comment below.
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Yes, over the years I must have heard a hundred different versions sung in folk clubs, good, bad and bloody awful, but I always thought the Campbells’ version was the best. I have no idea why, it just sounds near perfect. I know from personal experience it is a tricky song to sing, not sure what the technical reasons for that are, it just is, but Brian Clark absolutely nails it on the Campbells’ version and congratulations to him for doing so. Whatever the version however, it is simply a lovely song that captures the feel of living in northern England at that time so well.
I don’t really like their version. I’ve heard it a lot better many times. The mandolin sounds lousy and the used chords sequence is what it should be in my humble opinion.
First version I heard was from Rod Stewart’s ‘an old raincoat etc’ and is still my favourite.
Heard all these versions and MacColl himself singing live. However I would say that the Easy Club is my favourite.
The Pogues’ version appears on their album Rum, Sodomy, and the Lash which was produced by my favourite artist of all time, the one and only Elvis Costello!
… always been spoilt for me by the idea of taking a sharp axe to chop down a town – rubbish metaphor!
Without wishing to do a Sienna Miller (Pittsburgh) or Chelsea footballer Noni Madueke (Wolverhampton), have you been to Salford?
As a Londoner who has lived in Manchester I like Salford – but the point is not whether a town deserves destruction – it’s the mental image of someone taking a nice sharp axe to a lot of brick walls – you end up with a lot of brick walls and a dusty, blunt axe!
And my own favourite? Not the Dubliners – which I like a lot but Bill dislikes, as he does most of what they do/did – and not the Ian Campbell Folk Group, which is nonetheless a pleasing relic of the 1960s. Let me revert to the author – deceased, of course, as in tragic circumstances is Kirsty – and this captivating, jazz-tinged rendition with his wide Peggy Seeger (still with us, I’m glad to say) in terrific voice:
Opinions. That’s all they are, as the late Cranberries’ singer Dolores O’Riordan once expressed more graphically. But having and sharing them is surely a vital part of human communication.
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