Dirty Old Town: Folk anthem’s lost verse to be revealed

Nevertheless, it will give a new lease of life to a song which has long since become part of the public consciousness, thanks to a pair of covers released by Irish bands almost two decades apart.

All ready much-loved by folk devotees, the song was given an overhaul by The Dubliners in 1968, before being reworked again by The Pogues in 1985.

However, Seeger said she was not impressed with their versions.

“I don’t like what The Dubliners did to it, I don’t like what The Pogues did to it – I think they have lost the loneliness,” she said.

“I think they have lost the confusion of a young person walking through it.

“To me, Ewan was reliving his 20s and his late teens so I think it is harder to change.”

Such was the success of both versions however that many now assume the song is about Dublin.

Seeger said that while it was firmly about the city in which MacColl grew up, she could understand how it fitted other cities.

“It speaks to everybody from a dirty old broken down industrial city,” she said.

“I have no doubt if a Scots band had recorded it, Glasgow people would say it is theirs.

“But Salford was in Ewan MacColl’s bones.

“He took me to his dirty old town within a week of our three-decade partnership.”