Pogues – Dirty Old Town

It’s always a pleasure listening to their music. I guess the Waterboys primed me for this band. This song is more bare bones, which I really like. You can smell the smoke and feel the soot in this song. 

I thought for sure that Shane MacGowan wrote this one, but no, it was folk singer Ewan MacColl, the father of Kirsty MacColl. It was written back in 1949. Kirsty entered the Pogues’ orbit two years later with the timeless Fairytale of New York.

The Pogues’ version on their 1985 album Rum Sodomy & the Lash is sparse and haunting. With this song, they tapped into something universal: every working-class kid’s longing to burn the place they grew up in, even if they love it too much to leave. The song is about Salford, a city in Greater Manchester, England, but after the Pogues were done with it, it could have been about Pittsburgh or anywhere else. 

Where other bands might have polished the song into oblivion, the Pogues played it rustic, and it works. This isn’t a punk song in sound, but it is in spirit. When MacGowan sings these dismal lyrics, you believe every word. The song peaked at #27 in Ireland and #62 in the UK. The album peaked at #13 in the UK, and #17 in New Zealand in 1985. 

Dirty Old Town

I met my love by the gas works wallDreamed a dream by the old canalI kissed my girl by the factory wall

Dirty old townDirty old town

Clouds are drifting across the moonCats are prowling on their beatSpring’s a girl from the streets at night

Dirty old townDirty old town

I heard a siren from the docksSaw a train set the night on fireI smelled the spring on the smoky wind

Dirty old townDirty old town

I’m gonna make me a good sharp axeShining steel tempered in the fireI’ll chop you down like an old dead tree

Dirty old townDirty old town

I met my love by the gas works wallDreamed a dream by the old canalI kissed my girl by the factory wall

Dirty old townDirty old townDirty old townDirty old town

…

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Author: Badfinger (Max)

Power Pop fan, Baseball, Beatles, Alternative music, old movies, and tv show fan. Also anything to do with pop culture in the 60s and 70s... I'm also a songwriter, bass and guitar player. Not the slightest bit interested in politics at all.

63 thoughts on “Pogues – Dirty Old Town”

  5. Pingback: Pogues – Dirty Old Town – MobsterTiger

  8. How uncanny! I wrote about the song ‘Shoals of Herring’ that came out Tuesday which was also written by Ewan MacColl.

    Yes, I do remember ‘Dirty OldTown’, but I don’t which version. I like this one a lot. Your evocative phrasing ‘You can smell the smoke and feel the soot..’ couldn’t have captured it better.

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  9. Interesting you mention the Waterboys, I always link the 2 together in my mind , I guess due to time and the sound, the Pogues being the rougher and angrier of the two, but similar. It sounds like a song that could’ve been written in the early-80s. I heard it a handful of times in the ’80s but not since, so nice visit to memory lane, even if that lane is a ‘dirty ol town’.

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  13. This is a true Pull/Push Love/Hate ode. Sure, it’s dirty and gritty and shitty and you yearn to go, but it is what you know. The Pogues aren’t for me all the time, and Shane’s smile scares the bejaysus out of me (and any dentist who might wincingly see it) but this is exactly the right treatment for the song. From the banal to pathos without undue sentimentality.

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    1. You can feel what he sings in this one. I live in a small town…we all talked about leaving…most of us who did, including me for a while, came back.

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      1. Where we grow up sticks to you. My parents absolutely loathed where we lived for five of my prepubescent years. But what for them was an arid dirt and dust-in-the-wind depressing dump out on the wrong side of the tracks was a wide open never-ending playground for my grubby and scabby-kneed brothers and me. Now I wouldn’t trade those memories and times for a silver spoon Richie Rich childhood. It makes and shapes you what you are, warts and all.

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      2. It really will shape you. I grew up with a divorced mom and we struggled but I never knew it much until looking back. I had creeks, woods, and mountains to explore but some ornery country people to stay away from. I’m with you…I wouldn’t change it for anything.

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      5. Ob, my dad was the nature lover of the two parents. We lived in a quiet residential city, but he took us out to nature often. I did get a chance to run through fields and along the marshes at my maternal grandparents’ place, where my cousin and I spent a lot of time. I wouldn’t trade any of it for the world.

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    3. Well said, Ob. You yearn to go but it’s what you know. I appreciate Shane being attached to his grill, but the pain and stench pouring forth from it had to have been unbearable. I can’t watch him sing.

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  14. It’s funny, I was going to say that the Waterboys’ lead singer sounded like Shane MacGowan on one of the songs you posted. I have a Pogues collection and maybe something else I taped off of a library CD, but I’m no expert on their work. I don’t listen to as much Celtic music as I used to years ago. Need to get back into it.

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    1. I’m like you….I’m not great on their history but I do like what songs I hear. This one kinda hit me because I grew up in a town and vowed to get out…and I did for a while but came back. What seems bad as a kid is not so bad as an adult…as in a great place to raise kids lol…vicious circle I guess! Our town though as small as it is…isn’t dirty by coal or anything…but it’s hard making a living here unless you drive to Nashville…which I do. Well you didn’t need to hear all of that!

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      2. Ok thank you for indulging me! I guess everyone has a story about their hometown. I grew up in a small town called Ashland City Tn around 40 minutes out of Nashville. It’s a nothing town but a great place to raise kids and that is why I came back. Crime is low and people are genuinely nice. The things that used to get on my nerves I find endearing now…like going to a grocery store and Susie behind the counter asking Sue if she is alright etc etc etc…if someone has a different opinion…that is alright. Laid back is the key word.
        I can’t imagine living in a huge city now…not even Nashville which I call the large small city.

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  15. He sings and they play this just right. Having been born and raised in a dirty old town, it resonates with me. The city leaders keep trying to turn it into something that it isn’t. It’ll always be a dirty old town in spirit.

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    1. It’s such a great song. I wanted to leave my town and I did…but I ended up coming back…things that got on my nerves as a kid…I liked as an adult lol…so I can’t complain. It helps also that I grew up in the country with creeks, mountains, etc.

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      1. I can understand, as things you might be looking for as a young adult are found in other places and when it is time to raise a family you want your offspring to have that nature thing. Both of my kids are attuned with nature and my son and his wife are passing that on to my little granddaughter. This will get you, Max, so be prepared:
        At her pre-school, they bring guest speakers, etc. in (yes, this young) and my son sent me a pic of a person holding a snake curled around there arm and her face is lit up with joy. She may be the next Marlin Perkins. (Are you old enough to remember Marlin Perkins?)

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      2. Oh yes! I used to watch Marlin Perkins because he came on around when the World of Disney came on when we were kids. I’ll never forget him! That is so awesome! We need someone to fill that role so maybe she will be the one.
        Animals are so great…as I’m holding Rudy now lol.

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      3. So cute with Rudy ❤ Glad you remember Marlin and yes World of Disney and also Lassie. Remember those Jacques Cousteau specials? They've made some good ones that I've seen on Netflix. One series, "Our Oceans," is narrated by (and produced) by former POTUS Obama.

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      4. Cousteau yes…I brought him up the other day. Perkins and Causteau seemed so personal like they were talking to us and not down to us. It’s hard to get that now. I have heard of Our Oceans.

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  16. My aunt and uncle had a Mom and Pop grocery store, and I’ve been told that Marlin Perkins came in one time. The only other famous person that came in you may have heard of since you’re a silent films buff, ZaSu Pitts. Uh-oh, I’m becoming a shameless name dropper.

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    1. Keep name dropping!!! That is awesome! That is so cool. Yes I know of ZaSu Pitts… I don’t mind name dropping at all. I do it here when a story comes up about people I have met. Thank you so much for sharing that.

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      2. I guess it could have been in the 30s to the 60s or so…that is cool to have someone like that to come in. It was probably a different mindset back then. My grandmother ran an old country store…not far from where I’m at now…the building is still there. It was in the 40s I believe.

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      3. I’m not sure when they got that store. I know my uncle had another fruit and veg stand that was in the downtown area, but the store was in a more residential area, a few blocks from where I live now. They built a bank where it was, but that closed a couple of years ago and now it’s empty. They very well could have been in business in the 40’s. I know they got married in 1932 because they celebrated their 50th anniversary in 1982.

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      4. That is some history…50th anniversary. I’m sure that kept them busy in that kind of area. I’m sure life was harder but in some ways better with some things.
        It was so different at that time. Too bad the building isn’t standing.

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      5. Oh, sorry that was their 50th wedding anniversary I was talking about. Still they were well known in the area, especially for their meats. They employed an actual butcher who learned his trade in Germany.

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      6. Oh yea I knew. That’s a long time. One set of my grand parents got there. An actual…butcher?

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      8. I didn’t know that was a thing. That sounds really cool… to go and study to be that

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      9. Ok… it cut off the butcher part when I was replying on my phone… I’m sorry! I wasn’t being a smart aleck! I thought you hit send before you typed it.
        That is really cool. That was when real neighborhoods were present. Not that they are completely gone now

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  17. I enjoyed this song. True about how they make you feel the song. The Pogues are a band who I’ve always meant to get more familiar with, but never get around to it. I do have Fairytale of New York in my Christmas playlist, and it makes me emotional every time.

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    1. That song does the same thing to me…this one feels like a lot of towns…dirty or not….I have just dipped my toe their water…I would like to know more.

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