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This brilliant song ( go to Utube for the song ) has a chequered history.
from Wiki
The song was written in reference to Salford, a city in Lancashire, England, and the place where Ewan MacColl was brought up. When he first wrote the song, the local council were unhappy at having Salford called a dirty old town and, after considerable criticism, the words of the song were changed from "smelled a Spring on the Salford wind" to "smelled a spring on the smoky wind". The Spinners made the first popular recording of the song and they sang "Salford wind". This was hardly surprising as the lead singer on the track was Mick Groves, a Salfordian. It was originally composed for an interlude to cover an awkward scene change in Ewan MacColl's Salford-set, 1949 play Landscape with Chimneys, but with the growing popularity of folk music the song became a standard.
The song paints an evocative yet ultimately bitter picture of industrial northern England, and presages to some extent the Angry Young Man school of the 1950s.
Because of the song's association with The Dubliners and The Pogues, most people tend to think of it as an Irish song, and as such, in Ireland the lyrics are popularly thought to refer to Dublin.
anyway.....
Originally written by Ewan M'coll 1949
about Salford
Found my love by the gaswork croft
Dreamed a dream by the old canal
Kissed my girl by the factory wall
Dirty old town, dirty old town
I heard a siren from the dock
Saw a train set the night on fire
Smelled the spring on the sulfured wind
Dirty old town, whoa-oh, dirty old town
We're goin' to take a good sharp axe
Shining steel tempered in the fire
And we'll chop you down like an old dead tree
Dirty old town, dirty old town
Dirty old town, whoa-oh, dirty old town
And oh we'll chop you down
Oh, dirty, dirty, dirty old town
Dirty old town, dirty old town
And oh whoa-oh dirty old town
Chop you down one of these days
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