Having produced many acts, including the most successful band of all time, Liverpool boasts a storied pop music heritage.
However, the city is also a prominent location for folk music. Its connection with Ireland and its status as a port has meant that Liverpool plays a significant role in the folk tradition.
Traditional Irish folk music was brought to the city by mass Irish immigration, which came to a head during the Great Famine, while folk's association with seafaring and the role that sea shanties played in the development of the genre mean that maritime Liverpool is the subject of many songs.
READ MORE: How immigration, betrayal and neglect caused feeling of 'Scouse, not English'
Sea shanties, narrated by sailors heading from the port of Liverpool to far-flung locations, or Irish songs you will still hear live folk music in pubs across the city - particularly Irish pubs. We take a look at some Liverpool folk songs and the stories that inspired them.
The Leaving of Liverpool
A sea shanty about a sailor's long trip to California and the sadness of leaving his loved ones in Liverpool, this song has been recorded by a number of different groups - as well as being adapted by Bob Dylan.
The song is said to have two versions - one of which was said to have been passed on from Liverpudlians on board the General Knox ship in the late 19th century. That version sees the narrator leave Liverpool on a clipper ship. Other views suggest that the song originated during the Gold Rush, as the narrator leaves Liverpool to make his fortune in California.
The song was introduced into the folk revival by Ewan MacColl, learning it from a book of songs before recording it on a 1962 album. The Dubliners and Liverpool band The Spinners also recorded in the 1960s, while The Pogues recorded it later. Bob Dylan named his version of the song 'Farewell', while the tune can be heard in the film Titanic, as the ship leaves Ireland.
The Pogues' version begins:
Fare thee well to you, my own true love
There were many fare thee wells
I am bound for California
A place that I know right well
So fare thee well, my own true love
For when I return, united we will be
It's not the leaving of Liverpool that grieves me
But my darling when I think of thee
I am bound on a Yankee clipper ship
Davy Crockett is her name
And her Captain's name it is Burgess
And they say that she's a floating hell
I Wish I Were Back In Liverpool
Among the most famous Irish folk bands of all-time, The Dubliners have recorded plenty of songs which are about or reference the city of Liverpool. In this song, the narrator is a sailor who is wistful about his Liverpool home.
It makes reference to building the Wallasey tunnel, as well as a number of Liverpool locations - including Parliament Street and the Pier Head. The narrator misses the city and wishes to be taken back to Liverpool, despite the fact that his home town is not without its issues.
The song goes:
I wish I was back in Liverpool, Liverpool town where I was born
Where there ain't no trees, no scent of grease, no fiel's of waving corn
But there's lots of girls with peroxide curls and the black and tan flows free
There's six in a bed by the old pier head and it's Liverpool town for me
'Tis seven long years since I wandered away to sail the wild world o'er
Me very first trip on an old steam ship that was bound for Baltimore
I was seven days sick and I just couldn't stick that bobbin' up and down
So I told them "Jack, you'd better turn back for dear old Liverpool town"
Maggie May
A traditional Liverpool folk song, Maggie May (or Mae) is said to be about a prostitute who robbed a sailor returning to the city. Sung in Liverpool and popular with sailors from across the world, a skiffle version led to it becoming widely popular in the 1950s.
The song mentions a number of locations around the city, focusing on Lime Street. It is sung in the first person from the perspective of a sailor who has returned to Liverpool. He spots Maggie May on Canning Place and returns to his lodgings with her. But when he wakes in the morning, he finds that Maggie has stolen his money and clothes. She is later found guilty of stealing and transported to Botany Bay in Australia.
It has a number of different versions, as is the case with many folk songs. However, the brief version recorded by The Beatles on their 1970 album Let it Be goes:
Oh, dirty Maggie Mae they have taken her away
And she'll never walk down Lime Street anymore
Oh, the judge, he guilty found her
For robbin' the homeward bounder
That dirty, no good, robbin' Maggie Mae
'Tis the part of Liverpool
They returned me to
Two pounds ten a week, that was my pay.
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