Pub Tune

Although this song was written by the Brit Ewan MacColl in 1949 about a town in Lancashire, England, the Celtic punk band the Pogues, led by Irish singer/songwriter Shane MacGowan, made it a chart-topping hit in 1985. As such, it is often thought to be of Irish origins. Nonetheless, it is a great tune for a pub sing.

I met my love by the gas works wall

Dreamed a dream by the old canal

I kissed a girl by the factory wall

Dirty old town, dirty old town

Clouds a drifting across the moon

Cats a prowling on their beat

Spring’s a girl in the street at night

Dirty old town, dirty old town

Heard a siren from the docks

Saw a train set the night on fire

Smelled the spring in the smokey wind

Dirty old town, dirty old town

I’m going to make a good sharp axe

Shining steel tempered in the fire

Will chop you down like an old dead tree

Dirty old town, dirty old town

Dirty old town, dirty old town