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The song Dirty Old Town is to be given a new lease of life more than 70 years after it was first released – with an orchestral accompaniment recorded in the city which inspired its lyrics. Peggy Seeger, 88, whose late husband Ewan MacColl wrote the famous song about Salford in Greater Manchester, has recorded the track with an accompaniment from the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra and will perform an abandoned verse from it at a festival next month. Advertisement Seeger, an American folk singer, said it was the first of MacColl’s music she heard him perform, after they met when she came to the UK in 1956.

Peggy Seeger with her son Neill MacColl, daughter-in-law Kate St John and the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra. Photo: BBC/Chris Payne/PA. She said: “I think he was infatuated with me at the time.



He was 41, I was 21. And he brought me to Salford to show me where he had grown up. Advertisement Advertisement “So I tied Dirty Old Town to Salford in an indissoluble knot.

It told me about where he’d been brought up.” The song, first released in 1952, went on to be covered by The Dubliners and The Pogues. MacColl, the father of late singer Kirsty MacColl, also wrote The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face, which was covered by Roberta Flack, for Seeger.

He was known for his political views and at one time was under surveillance by MI5 because of communist sympathies. Advertisement Seeger returned to Salford, now home to Media City UK, to record the orchestral version of Dirty Old To.

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