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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