English

Dirty Old Town

I do not know when I first heard this well known twentieth-century folk-song by Ewan MacColl but I learned it from Wilfried Drygala when we took this song into the "Idle Fellows" repertoire. It is extremely well-known in Germany, even among the quite young, and I'm often asked to perform it.
I quite like the song and I find it very poetic and the words certainly match my youth as a young R.N. Greenie in Portsmouth in the late fifties and early sixties. A lot of kissing by factory walls, dockyard walls or indeed any kind of wall went on in those days. I don't know if it still goes on in UK I've never seen that kind of behaviour by German youth at any period of time.
"Dirty Old Town" has been recorded by:
 The Dubliners on "Celtic Collections: The Dubliners" RealAudio
 Ewan McColl on "Black And White" RealAudio
 Various Artists on "Gems From The Emerald Isle Vol. 1" RealAudio
 Ian Campbell on "Contempary Campbells" 
 Liam Clancy on "Irish Troubadour" 
 Roger Whittaker on "The Very Best of Roger Whittaker" 
 The Dubliners on "20 Original Greatest Hits Vol.1" 
 Various Artists on "Emerald Favourites" 
 The Dubliners on "Greatest Hits 1" 
 The Pogues on "The Best of the Pogues"